The bankruptcy estate of collapsed crypto lender Celsius Network has filed a lawsuit against five BitMEX-linked companies, demanding the return of approximately 6,360 Bitcoin tied to forced liquidations during the March 2020 market crash. The complaint, lodged on September 12 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, values the claimed Bitcoin at roughly $495 million.

Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium, the litigation administrator appointed in the Celsius bankruptcy and a joint venture involving VanEck and GXD Labs, brought the action. The defendants named are HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services, entities associated with the BitMEX derivatives platform that operate across multiple jurisdictions including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, England, Hong Kong, the Seychelles and the United States.

Details of the Disputed Liquidations

The case centers on two leveraged Bitcoin futures positions closed by BitMEX between March 12 and March 13, 2020, amid the sharp sell-off linked to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. On the evening of March 12, BitMEX liquidated Celsius’s position, resulting in the loss of 1,325.8385 Bitcoin. Celsius asserts it transferred an additional 350 Bitcoin as margin at 23:47 UTC that day. BitMEX acknowledged the transfer five minutes later but indicated confirmation remained pending. The position was closed before the confirmation process concluded.

A second liquidation occurred at 02:50 UTC on March 13 involving JST Alpha 1, a Cayman Islands fund backed by Celsius. That event led to the liquidation of 5,034.3281 Bitcoin. JST assigned its related claims to the Celsius estate in April 2025. Combined, the two liquidations account for the 6,360 Bitcoin at the heart of the suit.

According to the complaint, the best offer price on the relevant contract dropped from $4,502 to $3,422 within a single minute during one of the events. The estate contends this movement could not be explained by ordinary trading activity.

The lawsuit includes nine counts alleging fraud, price manipulation and seeking the return of property. It asserts that BitMEX controlled both the systems determining when customer positions would be liquidated and the insurance fund that benefited from those liquidations. The allegations remain untested in court, and BitMEX has not publicly responded.

Timing Amid Exchange Wind-Down

The filing arrives 11 days before BitMEX is scheduled to permanently halt trading. The exchange plans to force-close all remaining positions at 04:00 UTC on September 23 as part of a strategic review that it has described as unrelated to insolvency, a security incident or regulatory action. This timeline places pressure on the recovery effort as the defendant platform prepares to cease operations.

The consortium previously secured a $299.5 million settlement with Tether. The current action represents another attempt to recover assets for Celsius creditors following the lender’s 2022 collapse. Celsius had marketed itself as pursuing low-risk, delta-neutral strategies, though bankruptcy filings later described highly speculative derivative activities conducted with customer funds.

The positions at issue were structured to benefit if Bitcoin prices held steady or rose. The estate maintains that the liquidations were wrongful and that the platform’s design contributed to the losses. BitMEX’s insurance fund historically expanded during periods of market stress when leveraged customer positions were closed.

At recent Bitcoin prices near $75,700, the claimed amount has been valued in the range of $481 million to $495 million depending on the exact timing of calculations. The court has yet to rule on any of the claims.