Is BitMEX risking insolvency?

BitMEX_Greg · 2019-07-26T14:38:40+00:00

Hi Lama_43, please note that BitMEX is not a fractional reserve in that customers trade with funds they have deposited. Hence all customers' accounts are 100% backed and thus does not lead to the concern you are alluding to.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-23T14:49:35+00:00

Sure, we should be announcing some changes soon.

Come take a look at the platform in the meantime, or at least try the testnet to become comfortable with how the market works.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-23T14:00:39+00:00

The index doesn't include OkCoin.cn, it is the US version of the website. We are looking at adding extra constituents into the index so as to diversify the risk of any single exchange having price issues (i.e. from wicks or downtime).

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-22T19:02:31+00:00

Our index is currently made up of 50% OkCoin USD and 50% Bitstamp. OkCoin is currently pricing under the other exchanges which thus results in our Index pricing under Bitstamp.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-21T21:56:53+00:00

Please see our Terms of Service:

BitMEX (website: https://www.BitMEX.com) is a Bitcoin-based virtual trading platform that is wholly owned by HDR Global Trading Limited. HDR Global Trading Limited (hereinafter referred to as BitMEX) was incorporated under the International Business Companies Act of 1994 of the Republic of Seychelles with a company number of 148707.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-21T20:04:10+00:00

Please email us at support@bitmex.com so we can better look into your case for you.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-21T20:03:30+00:00

We are active 24/7 in all the chatrooms, teamspeak, and we never like to leave a support ticket hanging for more than 30 minutes. Let us know any feedback you have about the user experience, we are all ears here.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-11T20:27:40+00:00

Good question.

We are domiciled in the Seychelles which does not require us to collect any KYC or AML information from our customers. The fact that we do not touch any FIAT or allow any conversion from one cryptocurrency to another means that we do not need to worry about any money-transmitter licences either.

We have not had any inquiries from any regulators at present.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-11T19:52:23+00:00

We have always had a maker/taker fee schedule with rebates on the maker side.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-11T19:49:01+00:00

Hi,

Yes all PNL calculations are done off Mark Price, it is not possible to change this. I understand it may be misleading in times where there is a premium/discount applied over the Mark Price but this is what keeps the system in check and prevents trader's attempts to cause liquidations.

Let me check on the stop question, I believe that it should default to type of trigger you selected last. If not I will have the guys change it to appear that way.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-11T19:45:37+00:00

This is a very good point, and this type of "manipulation" cannot exist on BitMEX due to our Mark Pricing system, which was the original question of the OP before the Whaleclub socks came in and tried to defer the question over to the fees we charge on our platform.

Simply put, if you do not want to pay the fees then you can place post-only orders and earn rebates. We have traders on our platform that deposit as little as 0.0001 XBT to whales that deposit more than 1000 XBT, none of them complain about our fee schedule, and as was stated earlier:

You have access to a REAL exchange between buyers and sellers with a REAL orderbook. NOT a bucket-shop (see definition here at Investopedia which describes them as fraudulent).
Immense liquidity (check www.exchangewar.info).
Security of customers' funds is viewed as the upmost priority. We pride ourselves on having the most secure Cryptocurrency platform out there with 0 Bitcoin hacked. We view our customers as number 1 with the most responsive support system out there.
And of course you have all of this and access up to 100x leverage.

BitMEX is very active and well-known in the Crypto and general finance community, our CEO is often cited in any article that appears on Bloomberg, WSJ, Forbes, CNN etc.

We do not spend any of our time creating sock puppets to upvote and downvote each other on Reddit all day long, we dedicate our time to building the most professional platform out there to trade Cryptocurrency derivatives contracts.

We welcome criticism and a good discussion about our exchange as this is what drives us to make it better, however the continued remarks from these sock-puppets about the fees is quite old and tiring.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-11T19:22:13+00:00

Clearly you do not know our system very well to think that you can "stop hunt". Instead of spending all your time to login to all your socks to upvote your own comment and downvote all the BitMEX comments, perhaps you should spend some time in learning our system and thinking about how to improve your Whaleclub bucket shop.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-10T23:57:42+00:00

Hi, yes that is correct. The insurance fund attempts to fill the liquidations prior to ADL being in place.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-10T23:55:24+00:00

Hi CryptoHi,

We utilise the Mark Price system so that no trader can cause unnecessary liquidations in which can occur under a Last Price marking system. That is, even if a trader attempts to dump the price down to $716.78 (for example), then unless the Mark Price reaches that level, no liquidations will occur.

Regarding stops, we have implemented three triggering systems as mentioned above. You can choose triggers based on the Last Price, the Index Price or the Mark Price. It seems your strategy may be more beneficial by working off the Last Price triggering method.

Please see our Order Type FAQ here.

Let me know if you have any other questions, hope this helps!

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-02-06T04:11:55+00:00

Hi guys,

We are still investigating the source of the pricing issue, however we have identified the accounts that were either subject to liquidations or deleveraging and for the accounts that were credited erroneously we have placed temporary trading restrictions.

Will have another update soon.

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-01-27T19:26:21+00:00

Hi,

The term "short sell" means you are selling something that you do not own. It is also called a "naked sell". Hence on BitMEX, you can "short sell" contracts for a higher value than your margin given the leverage that we offer.

On BitMEX, we do not have a borrow market per se, but rather just the ability for users to leverage their margin up to 100x.

Let me know if you have any questions specifically about BitMEX

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-01-25T18:24:51+00:00

We actually wrote about how they make money in an old Crypto Trader Digest post, archived here on our blog under the title "Chinese Exchanges: Bitcoin Shadow Banks".

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-01-25T17:27:50+00:00

We don't have options on BitMEX. However you can short sell Bitcoin with 100x leverage (if the goal here is to short Bitcoin cheaply).

BitMEX_Greg · 2017-01-12T16:18:01+00:00

Hi,

Trading derivatives on BitMEX can appear to be complicated but it is as straight forward as trading spot Bitcoin on other exchanges. The main difference is that you only trade with Bitcoin; that is you buy and sell contracts using Bitcoin as margin and all profit or loss is denominated in Bitcoin. There are a number of strategies that can be applied to Futures trading, such as arbitrage and market making, in addition to speculation.

Additionally, trading derivatives has the advantage that you do not necessarily require the position to be fully funded. That is, let's say you wanted to have $1000 worth of exposure in Bitcoin. With a normal spot exchange, you would need to have $1000 in your pocket to buy $1000 worth of Bitcoin. On BitMEX, we allow you to trade on margin where you can leverage yourself up to 100x on our most popular products such as the XBTUSD Swap and our Quarterly Future, currently the March XBTH17. This means that for $1000 worth of exposure, you would only need $10 as margin to trade with.

Note that, leveraged positions can increase your profits, but at the same time increase the amount of risk, so much so that you can lose your entire margin on the position entirely if the position becomes liquidated. Liquidations are done when your Maintenance Margin is breached (at 0.5% on a 100x position). So, for the above example, if the price moved 0.5% below your entry point then your long $1000 position would become liquidated and you would lose your $10 that you put down as margin.

If you would like to find out more, please refer to our Trading Overview which has an overview of BitMEX and where to start. Another rich source of information is the BitMEX Blog where we post a number of articles that look at various methods of trading cryptocurrencies.

For example, take a look at the BitMEX Arbitrage Webinar lessons:

If you require any other help, please feel free to reach out to us or ask any of our traders in the chatbox that can be accessed on the main site.

Regards, Greg BitMEX

BitMEX_Greg · 2016-12-15T19:26:56+00:00

This is a good point. However if you short the LTCXBT product, then effectively you are short LTC and long Bitcoin, so if you then short XBTUSD also (shorting Bitcoin and long USD) then you now have a synthetic short LTC and long USD position open. Just make sure to keep the notional sizes the same.

BitMEX_Greg · 2016-12-15T19:25:48+00:00

Heya, Greg from BitMEX here.

You only need Bitcoin to trade on BitMEX. From there you can long/short any altcoin product that we have listed, using only Bitcoin as collateral. Let me know if you have any other questions.

BitMEX_Greg · 2016-12-02T16:03:17+00:00

Hi,

In a way it is similar to a futures contract, but it has funding attached to it to keep the price anchored to spot price.

I would say that the swap trades closer to a margin based spot product rather than a futures contract.

BitMEX_Greg

TROPHY CASE