Celsius Network’s bankruptcy estate has sued five BitMEX companies over 6,360.1666 Bitcoin (BTC) seized in two forced liquidations during the March 2020 crash.
The September 12 filing landed 11 days before BitMEX stops trading for good. Celsius lost the coins under founder Alex Mashinsky, now serving 12 years for fraud.
The Two Liquidations at the Center of the Case
A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged trade once the collateral behind it runs short. BitMEX closed Celsius’s Bitcoin futures position late on March 12, 2020, taking 1,325.8385 BTC.
Celsius had sent 350 BTC of extra margin at 23:47 UTC. BitMEX emailed five minutes later to say it had seen the transfer but not yet confirmed it. The position was gone before that confirmation arrived.
The second liquidation hit JST Alpha 1, a Cayman Islands fund Celsius had invested in, at 02:50 UTC on March 13. It cost another 5,034.3281 BTC. JST assigned its claims to Celsius in April 2025.
In that same minute, the filing says, the best offer price on the contract fell from $4,502 to $3,422. Celsius argues the move cannot be rationally explained by trading.
“Instead of maintaining an orderly market, BitMEX intentionally designed its platform and liquidation procedures to cause liquidations of collateral and defraud its own customers,” Celsius said in the complaint.
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What the Estate Wants Before September 23
Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium filed the case in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The VanEck and GXD Labs venture was appointed in 2024 to chase Celsius assets for creditors.
It names HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services. Nine counts cover fraud, price manipulation and replevin, a demand for the property itself.
The coins are worth roughly $481 million at Wednesday’s Bitcoin price of $75,702. The same recovery team pulled a $299.5 million settlement out of Tether last October.
BitMEX force closes all remaining positions on September 23 at 04:00 UTC. It has tied the reasons behind its shutdown to a strategic review rather than insolvency, a hack or regulator action.
None of the allegations have been tested, and BitMEX has not answered them. Mashinsky, who ran Celsius when the coins vanished, was permanently barred from trading regulated US derivatives markets in June.
Bitrue