The company that sued FTX and Ripple is now targeting BitMEX

BMA LLC, the Puerto Rican company that filed a lawsuit against Ripple two weeks ago, accused the BitMEX derivatives exchange of orchestrating the biggest financial crime in American history.

The BMA case against BitMEX

The little-known company, formerly known as Bitcoin Manipulation Abatement and controlled by Pavel Pogodin, filed a lawsuit with the District Court of the United States last week, claiming that HDR Global Trading, the parent company of BitMEX, has perpetrated a vast racket designed to collect billions of illegal profits.

BitMEX's planned conspiracy included online fraud, money laundering, unlicensed money transmission, interstate transportation of stolen property and violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, says the BMA accusation.

In a statement, a HDR spokesperson said the company was aware of the complaint "which clearly re-proposes information collected from the Internet", and that it would defend itself "vigorously against this false claim".

The note continues by stating that "BMA has recently emerged as a serial authorizing officer for claims against companies operating in the cryptocurrency space and is widely recognized for operating just like a patent troll."

Exchange against customer interest?

In response to the prosecution, HDR said: "We will handle this complaint through a normal contentious process and we are completely confident that the court will see the complaint for what it is."

BitMEX's inability to obtain a license for the transfer of money and its ties to US investors leads to the conclusion that $ 3 billion in illicit financing was processed every day, says BMA, "which is the record volume of that illicit activity. in the entire history of monetary regulation in the United States. "

BMA also claims that BitMEX manipulated the cryptocurrency markets by artificially raising the price of bitcoin. The exchange, which allegedly operated against customers' interest, linked its futures indices to exchanges on an illiquid market which it would then manipulate and capitalize on the basis of schemes with fake "technical problems" that prevented customers from leaving from their positions.

The "P.T. Barnum of the Cryptocurrency "

The plaintiff fired against BitMEX's 100x leveraged trading options and claimed that founder Arthur Hayes is the "P.T. Barnum of the cryptocurrency. " The company said, "Describing cryptocurrency trading as an" entertainment business ", [Hayes] he has taken on the role of showman and promoter for those degenerate players that he solicits and encourages speculative trading by flaunting his sumptuous lifestyle and making bold predictions designed to get answers and move in the market profitably for BitMEX ".

BMA and Pogodin have already chased other cryptocurrency headliners. In November, the BMA targeted FTX on charges of price manipulation before voluntarily filing its case a little over a month later. In early May, BMA filed a lawsuit against Brad Garlinghouse and Ripple Labs for an alleged $ 1.1 billion violation of the United States securities law in its sale of XRP tokens.