The cat is out of the bag and a lot of crypto traders and enthusiasts noticed what happened when the popular crypto exchange of BitMEX went offline for a brief period during a scheduled maintenance last night. The exchange that has traded over 1 Million Bitcoin (BTC) in a day on two occasions, has been the fan favorite for traders who are taking advantage of the bear market and want to short the digital assets of Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Cardano (ADA), EOS, Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX) and XRP.
To quote an anonymous trader on Telegram:
Trading over there is as fast as greased lightning.
But we are digressing. During the scheduled maintenance that lasted from 01:00 UTC to 02:00 UTC, something spectacular happened to BTC. Before the maintenance started, BTC was valued at $6,463. Thirty minutes into the maintenance, BTC had spiked to $6,816: a 5.5% increment.
By the end of the hour, it was valued at $6,708. The King of Crypto is currently valued at $6,667 and up 3.59% in the last 24 hours.
Friend or Foe to Bitcoin
The million dollar question from this spike in the value of BTC is if BitMEX is a friend or enemy to the general ecosystem of Bitcoin in the crypto markets. One argument that has been postulated is that during that one hour of maintenance on BitMEX, a majority of the short positions in the global crypto markets were inactive. This then means the Bulls had a chance to go long on BTC thus triggering a buying spree and a price increment.
This theory then goes on to conclude that shorting Bitcoin and other digital assets is simply destroying the ecosystem and even preventing the SEC from approving ETFs based on the fact that the markets are too volatile. The SEC has the sole mandate of protecting American investors from shady trading and the crypto markets are a bit ‘crazy’ sometimes.
The other side of the argument is that the team at BitMEX have thought outside the box and offered investment products that allow traders to bet against their digital assets rather than just waiting for them to moon. With such new investment products comes great profits for the exchange as can be seen from recent reports of the firm renting the most expensive offices in Hong Kong.
One co-founder of the platform, Ben Delo, has been crowned Britain’s youngest Bitcoin Billionaire at the age of 34. His story can be likened to how Zuckerberg started facebook or how the two Steve’s founded Apple: they all took and idea and ran with it till the end.
In conclusion, the crypto-verse has been expanding at a rate that not even the traditional Wallstreet experts can explain 100%. It might be due to the fact that cryptocurrencies are decentralized and regulation is a headache by governments with officials who are yet to understand the underlying technology. With such rapid growth expansion comes those opportunities that a few can capitalize on. BitMEX is one such exchange that has started offering products that the crypto-traders want but at what cost to the general ecosystem of the crypto-markets?
