BitMEX Early Founders Close $540 Million Lawsuit Against The Exchange

BitMEX early founders close the $540 million lawsuit against the exchange, with one attorney claiming that it was settled out of court. The lawsuit was seeking damages of $540 million which was only one of the few that the exchange faced in the past few years as we reported in our crypto news.

The lawsuit between crypto exchange and two BitMEX early founders Frank Amato and Elfio Guido Capone was closed this month and according to an attorney at TransPacific Law Pavel Pogodin, the exchange settled with both Amato and Capone to a sum of $44 million in cash and equity. BitMEX was one of the first crypto derivatives trading platforms and was originally founded in Hong Kong but now it is based in Seychelles.

#BitMEX and Arthur Hayes just settled with their early investors Amato and Capone for about $44M in cash and equity and are now destroying evidence so no one can see. pic.twitter.com/Cz5yDDu6NV

— Pavel Pogodin, Esq. (@ppogodin) December 17, 2020

Plaintiffs Capone and Amato sued the crypto exchange in the Superior Court of California while trying to recoup over $500 million. Both of them claimed to have been early investors in the exchange over 5 years ago but according to Finance Magnates, Hayes sought the investment of Amato as early as 2014. The value of the equity in excess of $90 million as well $450 million in damages put the lawsuit at a total of $540 million. A number of lawsuits have been filed against the exchange over the past few years. Back in October 2020, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed money laundering charges against the platform as it claimed it was illegally operating in the United States.

In another indictment, the US Attorney for the District of New York filed charges against Arthur Hayes and the co-owners of the exchange for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. In the aftermath of the allegations, BTC was withdrawn massively from the exchange and about $420 million worth of BTC was withdrawn by October alone. Right after these allegations were made, the BitMEX CEO at that time, Arthur Hayes, stepped down as a CEO of the platform. He was replaced with Vivien Khoo who worked as an interim CEO who followed Hayes’ resignation.

After this change, BitMEX sped up the date to verify all of the exchange’s users, and yesterday, it announced all of the active users to be fully verified. As reported a day ago, The crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX has finally verified all users and started 2021 with a “fully verified active user base” which comes on the heels of multiple CFTC charges made back in October 2020.