BitMEX to Shut Down Permanently

David Dallaire of Tenor Labs | Lombard Launches Bitcoin Credit Strategy

Marco Manoppo & Karon Pangestu
July 24, 2026

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Good Morning

BitMEX, the exchange that basically invented degenerate leverage trading as we know it, is calling it quits on Sept. 23 after 11 years, and the fact that nobody wanted to buy it says everything about where perp trading margins have gone.

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In Today's Email:

What Matters: BitMEX to Shut Down Permanently 👀
Founders Highlight: David Dallaire of Tenor Labs 👨
Deal Flows: Lombard Launches Bitcoin Credit Strategy 🔎

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Narratives: Pioneer's Exit

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WHAT MATTERS

BitMEX to Shut Down Permanently

State of play: BitMEX will close for good on Sept. 23, 2026, ending an 11-year run in which Arthur Hayes's exchange popularized the 100x leverage perpetual swap that now dominates crypto derivatives trading everywhere.

BitMEX stopped new account registrations immediately and will fully shut down operations on Sept. 23, 2026.
Risk limits kick in Aug. 26 at 04:00 UTC, blocking new positions and permitting only reduce-only trades.
Any positions still open at closure time will be force-closed, with BitMEX disclaiming responsibility for resulting losses.
Users who leave assets on the platform past closure face a monthly fee of the greater of $50 or 1% annually.
The closure follows a Broadhaven-run sale process launched in February 2025 that never produced a disclosed buyer.

Why it matters: A pioneer of crypto derivatives is closing rather than selling, showing that even a clean-record exchange can't outrun regulatory costs and margin compression from cheaper rivals.

Our take: No buyer surfacing after 18 months of shopping says more about BitMEX's diminished standing than any "strategic review" language lets on.

For builders and investors: Unwind BitMEX positions well before the Aug. 26 risk-limit cutoff and stay alert for phishing tied to the wind-down.

BUILDER-INVESTOR HIGHLIGHT

David Dallaire of Tenor Labs

Intro: David Dallaire is the Co-Founder of Tenor Labs, a fully integrated platform to access onchain lending markets

Previous background: David co-founded Warden Finance, where he worked from November 2022 to July 2024. Before that, he was a Software Developer at theScore for 10 months in 2022, and a Software Engineer at Mirego from 2020 to 2021.

The big idea: David’s big idea is to bring portions of the $200T global fixed-rate lending market onto decentralized stablecoin infrastructure.

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INSIGHTS

Clarity Act Could Hurt Circle

Mizuho warns that the regulatory certainty the Clarity Act would bring to crypto could paradoxically hurt Circle by inviting institutional-scale stablecoin competitors like Open USD to commoditize USDC and erode its revenue share.

Mizuho analysts led by Dan Dolev argue the Clarity Act opens the door to more institutional competition, further commoditizing USDC.
Open USD, backed by 140+ companies including Visa, Stripe, BlackRock and Coinbase, routes nearly all reserve yield to distributors versus Circle's 38% retention model.
Coinbase, USDC's largest distributor, could gain leverage in its next revenue-sharing negotiation with Circle after endorsing Open USD.
The Clarity Act moved closer to passage Wednesday with new Senate text, though ethics provisions could still complicate a full vote.
Mizuho maintained a $50 price target on Circle shares, which traded around $67, down roughly 6% on the day.

DEAL FLOWS

Lombard Launches Bitcoin Credit Strategy

Deal flows soared this week - we saw $900M+ in deals 💼

Lombard is turning idle bitcoin deposits into institutional financing infrastructure, letting Flow Traders borrow stablecoins for market-making against BTC collateral instead of DeFi liquidity.

Lombard's Bitcoin Onchain Credit Strategy lets Flow Traders borrow stablecoins without posting its own onchain collateral.
Bitcoin deposited in Lombard's Bitcoin Earn vault provides collateral coverage via Cap's private-credit underwriting platform.
Underwriting premiums Flow Traders pays flow as yield directly to Bitcoin Earn depositors.
Bitcoin Earn has attracted over $1B in deposits from more than 38,500 users as a meta-vault architecture.
Lombard uses Chainlink's CCIP to secure cross-chain BTC.b deposits from Avalanche into an Ethereum vault.

Deal flows in the past week:

Trasia, $2M Seed Round
DGrid AI, $5M Seed Round
ZeroDelta, $6.8M Seed Round
Cordant, $8M Seed Round
Tenor, Undisclosed $ Seed Round
Pact Labs, $7M Series A Round
Pascal, $9M Series A Round
Cyclops, $20M Series A Round
Velocity, $34M Series A Round
K25.ai, Undisclosed $ Series A Round
Flex, $70M Series B Round
Augustus, $180M Series B Round
Alphea, $5M Strategic Round
Mandela Digital, $5M Strategic Round
SwarmBase, $7M Strategic Round
Crypto.com, $400M Strategic Round
Notabene, Undisclosed $ Strategic Round
Credible, $4M Public Token Sale
ILITY, $1M Unknown Round
Canton Network, $10M Unknown Round
Alpaca, $135M Unknown Round

QUICK BITES

Circle partners with Kakao, Toss Bank.
BitMEX t o shut down permanently 11 years.
LayerZero, Keeta enable tokenized bank deposits.
Strategy, BlackRock form Bitcoin Security Consortium.
Mirae Asset completes acquisition of Korbit crypto exchange.
Flow Traders pilots Lombard’s new BTC-backed credit strategy.
Swan CEO claims Twenty One serves Tether’s US political interests.

NOTEWORTHY READS & MEME

Luke’s read on Bottom Signals.
a16z’s read on It’s time to pass the CLARITY Act.
Blockworks' read on the Mechanics of Onchain Tranching.

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Disclaimer: All the information presented in this publication and its affiliates is strictly for educational purposes only. It should not be construed or taken as financial, legal, investment, or any other form of advice.