Celsius Sues BitMEX to Recover 6,360 Bitcoin (BTC) Worth $491M

Celsius Targets BitMEX Over 2020 Liquidations

The estate of bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network has sued five BitMEX entities to claw back roughly 6,360.1666 BTC liquidated during the March 2020 crash — a claim worth close to $491 million at today's Bitcoin (BTC) price. Records in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York show the adversary proceeding was filed on Sept. 12 by Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC), the litigation administrator appointed within Celsius's bankruptcy, naming HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, 100x Holdings, Shine Effort and HDR Global Services as defendants. The complaint traces the losses to Black Thursday: on March 12, 2020, a leveraged Celsius position was force-closed at a cost of about 1,325.84 BTC, and a further 5,034.33 BTC belonging to investment fund JST was liquidated the next day. JST later assigned its claim to the Celsius estate, leaving the aggregate in crypto whale territory at 6,360.1666 BTC — about $491 million at the roughly $77,195 per coin quoted on Sept. 18. At the center of the dispute is BitMEX's liquidation machinery under extreme volatility. The filing alleges the exchange simultaneously controlled the price trigger, the engine that executed closures and the insurance fund that received part of the liquidated collateral — a structural conflict of interest. Celsius claims some liquidation orders printed more than 24% below the platform's next best offer, and that the automated cascade added selling pressure that deepened Bitcoin's slide from roughly $7,300 to $3,900 across March 12–13, 2020. The CFTC later cited Coin Metrics and Skew data putting BitMEX contract liquidations in that window at about $1.1 billion. Celsius also cites a distributed-denial-of-service attack that disrupted the venue at 02:16 UTC on March 13, arguing selling pressure visibly eased once the engine stalled. These are allegations, not judicial findings, and BitMEX has yet to answer. The suit lands 11 days before BitMEX halts all trading on Sept. 23 at 04:00 UTC — an exit the board announced in July after a strategy review, with major XBTUSD and ETHUSD futures delisted and settled early on Sept. 16.

Bitcoin Dominance Slips Below 59%

The legal fight lands as Bitcoin's share of total crypto market capitalization has fallen to a one-month low below 59%, a reading that implies capital is rotating into the altcoin market. Bitcoin itself was changing hands near $80,000 in the latest session, roughly level with a week earlier, and the asset recently confirmed its own golden cross — the chart pattern in which the 50-day moving average crosses above the 200-day average. Traders tracking the structure on price charts on TradingView will note the confirmation arrived without strong follow-through, which is precisely what has pushed attention down the risk curve. The clearest expression of that shift sits beside Bitcoin: XRP's 50-day average now sits about 2% below its 200-day average, the narrowest gap since its August 2024 cross, though XRP's own record of 16 prior crosses — every one followed by a death cross within 12 months — counsels caution. FxPro chief market analyst Alex Kuptsikevich characterized the move as a cautious pivot toward altcoins rather than a full altcoin season, noting the altcoin season index and overall sentiment have not reached elevated levels. Our live spot feed recorded a swing of about 5% in Bitcoin over the past 24 hours as of publication, underscoring how choppy the rotation has been. The macro calendar is not helping: with the Trump-Xi Sept. 24 summit set to take up AI and tariff-truce terms, month-end risk appetite remains event-driven. Nor has deleveraging disappeared — our recent coverage of $283M in 24-hour perpetual liquidations showed longs and shorts still trading blows. For a market weighing a near-$500 million recovery claim against an exchange in its final trading week, positioning is thin and headline-sensitive, and our Bitcoin market coverage will track the dominance shift daily. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

Recovery Hinges on BTC, Not 2020 Dollars

The adversary proceeding we are reading — docketed Sept. 12 in the Southern District of New York bankruptcy court and pursued through BRIC as litigation administrator — asks not for 2020 dollar values but for the bitcoin itself, or damages measured at today's price. That relief structure is the story: a March 2020 liquidation dispute has grown into a near-$500 million recovery claim because Bitcoin compounded through two halving cycles since. It is also, implicitly, an argument for Bitcoin maximalism — coins held in kind outperformed the fiat value lost. Whether creditors ultimately receive those coins, or the claim dissolves into BitMEX's final week of operations, the complaint's own text — not commentary — defines the claim. We will follow the docket.