On September 12, the Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC) sued five BitMEX entities in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, seeking to recover 6,360 bitcoin valued at approximately $485 million in the complaint. The case concerns two trading accounts during the extreme market volatility of March 12-13, 2020. The assets had belonged to customers of Celsius, the crypto lending platform that later collapsed.
The lawsuit was filed days before BitMEX is scheduled to stop trading. HDR Global Trading Limited, the exchange's operator, previously announced that BitMEX would permanently close on September 23, 2026. BRIC's complaint repeats earlier allegations involving BitMEX's so-called “God Access” and alleged insider trading, while arguing that the platform's liquidation mechanisms may have intensified bitcoin's March 2020 sell-off.
BRIC Seeks 6,360 Bitcoin
On March 12-13, 2020, bitcoin fell by roughly 50% to below $4,000 as the COVID-19 shock triggered a broad sell-off across global markets. BRIC alleges that BitMEX shut down two Celsius-linked trading accounts during the turmoil and liquidated their positions at disputed prices.
The complaint also alleges that BitMEX's own trading activity may have amplified the decline. BRIC argues that the exchange's trading and liquidation arrangements during the crisis failed to maintain an orderly market. Instead, the arrangements allegedly forced collateral to be sold and turned market volatility into a source of revenue for the platform. These claims remain allegations by the plaintiff, and BitMEX's potential liability will have to be determined through the court process.
Liquidation Prices After the Outage
On March 13, BitMEX experienced a service outage lasting about 25 minutes. The platform attributed the disruption at the time to a distributed denial-of-service attack. After trading resumed, bitcoin rose from roughly $3,900 to $5,300.
BRIC alleges that when BitMEX resumed trading and continued processing liquidations, the order book still contained stale and insufficiently liquid bids. The plaintiff argues that forced-sell orders continued to execute lower in the weakened order book, producing liquidation prices that appeared only on BitMEX's abnormal order book and not on other markets.
The complaint further alleges that BitMEX's internal trading team may have been able to see customers' liquidation levels in advance and trade against them. BRIC presents these claims “on information and belief,” indicating that some of the underlying facts remain subject to evidence and further proceedings.
Earlier Allegations Over “God Access”
BRIC alleges that BitMEX's so-called “Insider Trading Desk” may have had real-time access to customer accounts, order flow, executions, positions and liquidation information unavailable to ordinary users. Some parties have referred to these alleged privileges as “God Access.” The complaint also alleges that individuals involved may have used anonymous “burner account” email addresses while trading across different cryptocurrency exchanges.
Similar allegations appeared in a separate lawsuit brought against BitMEX by BKX Services and David Namdar. BKX Services is a Nevada-registered company operating in New York. That case was filed on July 23, 2026, around the time BitMEX announced that it would shut down its trading business. The plaintiffs sought class-action status and the recovery of 623 bitcoin allegedly lost through forced liquidations.
Conflicting Accounts of the Insurance Fund
The Celsius-related litigation also alleges that collateral from each liquidated trade was transferred to BitMEX's insurance fund, potentially creating an incentive for the platform to liquidate customer positions. BRIC says the fund grew by 4,457 bitcoin between March 12 and 13, 2020, briefly reaching 37,836 bitcoin.
BitMEX, however, said at the time that the insurance fund lost 2,606 bitcoin on March 13. The exchange also stated that the fund did not cover BitMEX's day-to-day operating costs and was not included in the company's profits. The parties' descriptions of the fund's movements and the flow of liquidation proceeds differ, making those records a central factual issue in the case.
Celsius Operations Face Renewed Scrutiny
The case has also brought renewed attention to Celsius's business practices. In a report issued in January 2023, court-appointed examiner Shoba Pillay said that the business model Celsius marketed and sold to customers did not match the company's actual operations. The report also concluded that Celsius had abandoned its commitment to transparency from the time it was founded.
The report described a company that presented its activities to customers as relatively conservative investments but in practice made large, highly risky bets using borrowed funds. BRIC's effort to recover assets for former Celsius customers does not remove Celsius's own business practices from the broader question of how the losses occurred.
BitMEX has previously faced lawsuits from traders over liquidation practices, although not all plaintiffs prevailed. In October 2025, BRIC also announced an agreement with Tether to settle Celsius-related litigation for nearly $300 million.
BitMEX had not responded to the Celsius-related lawsuit by the time of publication. The exchange is scheduled to stop trading on September 23, 2026. Further proceedings will determine how the claim for 6,360 bitcoin is handled and whether the court accepts the allegations concerning BitMEX's liquidation mechanisms and internal access to customer information.