BitMEX is accelerating the wind-down of its derivatives business ahead of its September 23 closure, delisting XRP futures three weeks earlier than originally scheduled. The exchange will halt trading on the XRPU26 contract, along with ADA, ETH and XBT futures, at 12:00 p.m. UTC on August 10, settling remaining positions at time-weighted average prices calculated the same day.
Traders who don't close their positions manually before the deadline will have them settled automatically. From August 26, the platform moves into close-only mode, meaning no new positions can be opened, and any funds left on the exchange after the September 23 shutdown date will start accruing custody fees.
The End of an 11-Year Run
BitMEX's closure caps an 11-year run for the exchange that pioneered the 100x-leverage perpetual swap — now the single most traded instrument in crypto derivatives. At its peak between 2018 and 2020, the platform processed between $3 billion and $5 billion in daily volume; by the time HDR Global Trading Limited announced the shutdown on July 23, that figure had fallen to roughly $400,000 a day, a decline the company attributed to a strategic review following more than $200 million in combined U.S. regulatory penalties and a failed sale process. The retreat mirrors a pattern playing out elsewhere in crypto derivatives, where compliance costs increasingly favor larger, better-capitalized platforms over legacy venues.
Coinbase Opens Up UK Stock Trading
Separately, Coinbase has switched on commission-free US stock trading for its UK customers, letting users buy fractional shares — including in Google and Microsoft — for as little as £1, with trading available 24 hours a day, five days a week. CEO Brian Armstrong described the rollout as another step toward Coinbase's “Everything Exchange” ambition of housing equities and crypto in a single app. The move lands as Coinbase shares trade around $149.89 on the Nasdaq, giving the company a market capitalization near $39.55 billion.
Saylor Frames Bitcoin as Part of an AI-Driven Shift
Strategy co-founder Michael Saylor used the moment to make a broader case for Bitcoin, saying the company raised $15 billion for Bitcoin purchases partly on the strength of an AI-assisted pitch. Saylor argued that automation is displacing routine professional work — “it is no longer possible to perform routine work better than machines,” he said, citing lawyers, accountants and drivers as examples — and that human value is shifting toward idea generation and strategic judgment. He predicted Bitcoin could outperform the S&P 500 by 1.5 to 2 times over the next 20 years, positioning the asset alongside AI as one of two structural bets on where value accrues next.
A Busy Stretch for Exchange Consolidation
Taken together, the three stories capture a market in the middle of sorting winners from also-rans: legacy derivatives venues like BitMEX are being squeezed out by compliance costs, established players like Coinbase are broadening into adjacent markets such as equities to keep users inside their apps, and corporate treasuries like Strategy continue betting that Bitcoin's scarcity narrative still has room to run even as gold stages its own rally on similar demand.
