News linked to both this project and an event.
crypto exchange BitMart announced it will gradually wind down its trading platform business after nine years of operation. The platform halted new user registrations, deposits, and order placements at 01:30 UTC on July 26. All spot and derivatives trading will cease on August 26, and the platform is scheduled to officially shut down on January 31, 2027. BitMart stated that withdrawals will remain open, but checks related to identity, devices, sanctions, and funding sources may slow processing speeds. The company attributed the closure to its operational status, market conditions, and future strategic direction. Its native token, BMX, has fallen 81% over the past week to $0.057, bringing its market cap down to $19.6 million. BitMart previously suffered a loss of $196 million in December 2021 due to a hot wallet vulnerability, and covered the customer losses. Perpetual contract platform BitMEX also recently announced it will shut down after 11 years of operation, making BitMart the second major crypto exchange to announce a closure within a week.
CZ expressed regret over BitMEX's closure announcement, recalling that BitMEX pioneered the 100x leveraged perpetual contract in the crypto market in 2014, driving industry development.CZ noted that BitMEX only supported BTC deposits and single-chain operations at the time, and adopted a once-daily, multi-signature wallet batch withdrawal process. These seemingly inconvenient designs, he said, actually helped the platform avoid hacker attacks over the long term.He also mentioned that BitMEX's four co-founders admitted to violating the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) one month before their trial, each being fined $10 million and sentenced to home detention, with no prison time. However, CZ believes that BitMEX's business ultimately couldn't withstand the "War on Crypto" during the Biden administration.In conclusion, CZ stated that BitMEX is currently winding down in an orderly fashion, users can still withdraw assets, and he paid tribute to co-founder Arthur Hayes.
Odaily News, June 9th — BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes stated in his latest article "Reality Test" that if oil prices continue to rise due to the US-Iran conflict, it could trigger a collapse of the AI stock bubble and drag the entire crypto market down.Hayes said that if traffic restrictions in the Strait of Hormuz persist deep into the second quarter, spot prices for hydrocarbons and other key commodities could rise in the third quarter. If oil prices continue to climb and inflationary pressures impact the US midterm elections, Trump might pivot to a tough stance targeting data center construction, AI regulation, and taxation. Hayes believes the market could anticipate Trump limiting AI capital expenditure and taxing AI companies, thereby triggering the burst of the AI stock bubble.Hayes also noted that since November 2022, the scale of AI-related debt issuance has been approximately $1.5 trillion, and US M2 has increased by roughly the same amount during the same period. He believes the three factors that could pop the AI bubble include rising energy costs, the market's inability to absorb three major AI-related IPOs — namely SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI — and Trump's shift to opposing AI. In terms of portfolio, Hayes stated that Maelstrom's stock portfolio holds significant positions in US-listed energy producers; he has sold AI-related stocks and offloaded non-core crypto assets, having dumped HYPE, NEAR, and WLD last week, as well as selling ZEC due to the Orchard Pool vulnerability. He still holds Bitcoin and ETH and will execute tactical short trades via derivatives.
Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes), co-founder of BitMEX and CIO of Maelstrom Fund, stated in a post that he has liquidated his entire $ZEC position following a vulnerability exploit targeting ZEC’s Orchard Pool. Hayes noted that although malicious minting is highly unlikely, it cannot be cryptographically proven impossible; privacy narratives demand “perfection,” not merely “probable security.” He added that if the underlying assumptions are later falsified, he does not rule out repurchasing $ZEC at a lower price. His team continues to hold a $WLD position and maintains a bullish stance.
According to CoinDesk, while quantum computers cannot break Bitcoin’s mining mechanism or blockchain ledger, they could potentially crack the elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) that secures wallet ownership—using Shor’s algorithm. Currently, approximately 6.9 million BTC—roughly one-third of the total supply—are at potential risk because their public keys are already visible on-chain; this includes Satoshi Nakamoto’s estimated early holdings of about 1 million BTC. Transactions generated after Ethereum’s 2021 Taproot upgrade are similarly exposed due to public key disclosure. Ethereum has maintained an official post-quantum migration plan since 2018, with four full-time teams and over ten independent development groups, and operates a dedicated progress website at pq.ethereum.org. In contrast, Bitcoin currently lacks a unified roadmap for quantum resistance: existing proposals such as BIP-360 and BitMEX Research’s detection framework have not gained broad support among core developers. Prominent Bitcoin advocate Nic Carter has bluntly labeled Bitcoin’s quantum response “the worst,” while Blockstream CEO Adam Back acknowledges that current quantum systems remain confined to laboratory settings—but still endorses deploying optional upgrade paths in advance. Analysts note that Bitcoin’s decentralized governance culture makes coordinating large-scale security upgrades extremely difficult, and resolving historical issues—such as how to handle Satoshi’s holdings—presents a particularly thorny dilemma. A related Google paper warns that once quantum attacks become feasible, the window for effective response may already have closed.
BitMEX Research published an article proposing an alternative soft fork to BIP-361, suggesting that dormant bitcoins vulnerable to quantum attacks be frozen only upon confirmed existence of a quantum computer capable of stealing bitcoins. The proposal introduces a “canary fund” mechanism: a special bitcoin address whose private key is unknown but theoretically crackable by a sufficiently powerful quantum computer; users may donate BTC to this address as a bounty. If funds are spent from this address, it signals confirmed quantum threat and automatically triggers the freezing mechanism. BitMEX Research states that this proposal serves as a less contentious alternative to the more controversial BIP-361.