We’ve been at the forefront of cryptocurrency exchanges since 2016, when we launched our XBTUSD perpetual swap. Fast forward to now and it remains the most traded cryptocurrency product of all time. It changed the industry and has allowed us to continue innovating and expanding with new perpetual swaps, traditional futures and quanto futures products.

Our mission is to become one of the world’s largest regulated crypto derivatives exchanges and a powerful catalyst for change in the financial services industry.

A Perpetual Contract is similar to a traditional Futures Contract in how it trades - however, it does not have an expiry. That means you can hold a position for as long as you like. Perpetual Contracts track the underlying Index Price closely, using the mechanics of a Funding component

A Futures Contract is an agreement to buy or sell a commodity, currency or other instrument at a predetermined price at a specified time in the future.

BitMEX offers Perpetual Contracts and many different fixed-date expiries.

The Mark Price is the price at which the contract is marked for Unrealised PNL and Liquidation purposes.

The Settlement Price is the price at which a Futures Contract settles. To avoid price manipulation, BitMEX employs an averaging over a period of time prior to settlement. This time frame may vary from instrument to instrument.

Please refer to the individual contract specifications before trading.

In the Trade tab, on the “Place Order” section you can specify the quantity, price and direction.

Lot Size (in number of contracts) is a contract’s minimum trading unit and minimum position unit. Order quantity and position size need to be exact multiples of the contract’s Lot Size. Order quantity not in multiples of Lot Size, will be rejected.

*Please refer to the individual contract specification page for each contract’s Lot Size. * For example, a contract with a Lot Size of 100 would allow order quantities of 100, 200, 500, or 1000 contracts. It would reject quantities of 1, 5, 10, 35, 125, or 250 contracts. Similarly, a user may have a position size of 100, 200, 500, or 1000 contracts, but not 1, 5, 10, 35, 125, or 250 contracts.

From time to time it may be necessary to increase the Lot Size for a contract. In this situation, orders and positions may be rounded down to the nearest Lot Size, meaning that the “odd lot” portion of the position will be closed out.

A Bid is a standing order where the trader wishes to buy a contract at a specified price and quantity. An Ask is a standing order where the trader wishes to sell a contract at a specified price and quantity.

Yes, BitMEX has an anchor market maker who continuously quotes large sizes on different contracts. However, no special privileges are given to any of the market makers.

Yes, BitMEX offers leverage on all of its products.

The amount of leverage BitMEX offers varies from product to product. Leverage is determined by the Initial Margin and Maintenance Margin levels. These levels specify the minimum equity you must hold in your account to enter and maintain positions. Leverage is not a fixed multiplier but rather a minimum equity requirement. You can see the minimum Initial Margin and Maintenance Margin levels for all products here.

The highest leverage BitMEX offers is up to 100x leverage on its Perpetual Bitcoin / USD Perpetual Contract.

Initial Margin is the minimum amount of cryptocurrency you must have to open a position.

Maintenance Margin is the minimum amount of the relevant cryptocurrency you must hold to keep a position open. If your margin balance on BitMEX drops below this level your position will be taken over by the Liquidation Engine and be Liquidated.

When the Mark Price of a contract falls below your liquidation price for longs, or rises above your liquidation price for shorts, your Maintenance Margin level has been breached and the Liquidation Engine takes over your position. In your Trade History, the price the liquidated position was closed at is the Bankruptcy Price (equivalent to where your Maintenance Margin is equal to 0).

Upon liquidation, the Liquidation Engine attempts to close the position at the prevailing market price. If it is unable to do so then Auto-Deleveraging will occur.

No. We have a sophisticated margin and liquidation process that is designed to prevent any trader’s margin balance on BitMEX from ever going below 0.

No. BitMEX employs an Auto-Deleveraging System that does not need to socialise losses.

Auto-Deleveraging occurs when a liquidation remains unfilled in the market. Traders who hold opposing positions will be closed out according to leverage and profit priority.

No, BitMEX does not charge fees on deposits.

BitMEX does not charge fees on withdrawals on Bitcoin. When withdrawing Bitcoin, the minimum Bitcoin Network fee is set dynamically based on blockchain load and can be viewed on the Withdrawal Page.

BitMEX does charge fees on Tether withdrawals. The withdrawal fee of Tether can be viewed on the Withdrawal Page.

Yes, BitMEX charges a trading fee on every completed trade. Please view the Fees page for more information.

Under the Account tab, click on the Deposit link where you will be provided addresses to deposit cryptocurrency. After required network confirmation(s), funds will be credited to your account.

The minimum amount to trade on BitMEX varies from product to product depending on the Initial Margin. For XBTUSD (for example) it is $1 USD * 1% (Initial Margin) = $0.01. At a XBT/USD price of $600 this equals 0.00001667 XBT.

No, BitMEX stores all Bitcoin in a cold multi-signature wallet. See our Security Page for more information.

It is a Bitcoin wallet, stored offline that requires m of n signatures in order to spend any funds. In the case of BitMEX, it requires 2 of 3 partners to sign any transaction before funds may be spent.

This is one of many theft prevention methods that BitMEX employs to ensure customer funds are kept secured.

The cutoff time for Bitcoin withdrawals is 13:00 UTC. Shortly after that, Bitcoin will be sent to the address you specified.

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