Not A Great Year For Bitmex
Bitmex has had a pretty bleak year with many users migrating to alternative platforms such as Bybit due to service related issues. Bitmex has never shown much regard for users and the fairly recent XRP flash crash that took place exclusively on Bitmex proved as much. Many users reported that stop losses failed to trigger, causing many to suffer unnecessary losses. Bitmex refused to compensate users and as a result continued to shed more users.
Recent charges by the CTFC have come as a tremendous blow to Bitmex, causing the exchange to bleed $335 million as users began to frantically withdraw funds. Rumors within the space are that there may actually be a very bullish reason that crackdowns are on the rise.
Rumblings In The Crypto Space
Personalities within the Crypto space recently shared that they had received warnings that a crackdown was on the way. Elio Trades, a Crypto YouTuber recently shared that he and a number of colleagues were set to launch their own futures platform and during the final stages of the process were consulting with some heavyweight lawyers. They were warned that there was indeed a crackdown on the horizon and the motivation behind it was to make way for a Bitcoin ETF!
Now if you remember back in 2018, that was pretty much the only newsworthy topic! The news of a Bitcoin ETF was the ace waiting to be dealt which never arrived. It has been said that exchanges such as Bitmex have been key in the manipulation of the Bitcoin price. There is a lot of speculation surrounding this narrative but hopefully there will be some concrete evidence coming to the surface in the days to come.
How other exchanges will respond to recent developments will be crucial to monitor as KYC measures may increase or be implemented by exchanges currently not insisting on these measures. Personally, I have no issue with KYC measures provided I can trust the entity in question. This has been the reason why many have avoided KYC, the fact that some of these smaller exchanges simply cannot be trusted with that data. This is clearly an area of Crypto that needs to monitored in light of the current uncertainty.
A Bitcoin ETF Will Gift The Market
Though a lot of the current dynamics can be interpreted negatively, the reality is that the launch of a Bitcoin ETF will bring a tremendous amount of capital into the market. Typical stock exchanges and traditional investment platforms will become home to the ETF and that accessibility will provide interest. It will be interesting to see how a Bitcoin ETF actually performs because in essence an ETF tracks the price of an asset or basket as apposed to actually dictating the price.
