Celsius Filed Lawsuit against BitMEX over Liquidations during “Black Thursday” and Seeks 6,360 BTC
- Celsius is suing BitMEX over the bitcoin crash on March 12, 2020.
- The creditor claims BitMEX deliberately amplified the asset’s price drop, triggering a cascade of long-position liquidations.
- Celsius wants to recover 6,360 BTC.
Bankruptcy creditor Celsius Network filed a lawsuit against companies affiliated with the BitMEX crypto exchange, seeking the return of 6,360.1666 BTC, valued at about $495 million at the time of filing.
The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York via the Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium, concerns the liquidation of positions held by Celsius and the JST investment fund during the crypto market crash in March 2020.
Celsius accuses BitMEX of fraud, market manipulation, and unlawful misappropriation of digital assets.
The lawsuit was filed 11 days before the exchange’s scheduled shutdown.
Celsius Accused BitMEX of Artificially Amplifying the Bitcoin Crash
In the complaint, Celsius alleges that BitMEX controlled key elements of the liquidation mechanism: margin requirements, the prices at which liquidations were triggered, and the Liquidation Engine itself.
According to the plaintiff, the exchange used this control to intensify the price drop of the first cryptocurrency and create a cascade of forced selling.
On March 12, 2020, bitcoin lost about 50% over the course of the day. That day, BitMEX saw roughly $12.3 billion in derivatives trading — nearly a quarter of the total crypto-derivatives volume, which stood at about $53 billion. Over the next 21 hours, around $1.1 billion in long contracts were liquidated on the platform.
Celsius also said that certain bitcoin sell orders were placed more than 24% below the next-best sell price on BitMEX itself. As a result, the company claims, falling prices triggered new liquidations, which added further pressure to the market.
The complaint states that Celsius lost 1,325.8385 BTC on March 12, and JST lost another 5,034.3281 BTC the following day. In total, Celsius is seeking the return of 6,360.1666 BTC or their current value, as well as other damages and any profits BitMEX may have earned from the disputed liquidations.
At the same time, this is not the first lawsuit against companies linked to BitMEX since the shutdown announcement. In a previous suit, the exchange was accused of unlawfully misappropriating clients’ bitcoin through an automatic liquidation mechanism.
The plaintiffs claim the exchange may have used non-public information about traders’ positions, while its internal trading desk — could place trades during technical outages, when regular customers were unable to trade. They are demanding that the seized coins be returned to clients, as well as compensation for damages and other costs предусмотрені законодавством.
As a reminder, BitMEX recently announced it would wind down operations following a strategic review of its business and the cryptocurrency industry. Trading is set to fully stop on September 23, 2026.
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Source: Incrypted