In a recent interview published on Technode with CEO Arthur Hayes and COO Ben Delo, Bitmex’s co-founders discussed Bitmex’s growth, changes within the Chinese cryptocurrency landscape, and the future of the bitcoin and cryptocurrency industries.
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Bitmex Has Shown an Invulnerability to Recent Chinese Regulatory Crackdowns Upon Bitcoin Exchanges
Bitmex was co-founded in 2014 by CEO Arthur Hayes and COO Ben Delo, with CTO Samuel Reed having also been involved from the company’s inception. Within 3 years the exchange has grown to handle approximately $75 million USD worth of daily trade across the company’s products.
Bitmex has shown an invulnerability to recent Chinese regulatory crackdowns upon bitcoin exchanges, which has sought to bring cryptocurrency exchanges in-line with mainstream financial institutional practices. CEO Arthur Hayes described the perversely positive outcomes enjoyed by Bitmex as a result of the regulatory actions.“We are bitcoin only so we don’t take government issue fiat currency, so if a banking system gets shutdown it doesn’t really affect us because people can still move bitcoin in and out of the platform because it’s purely a tech protocol. If anything, China shutting down the exchanges helped increase our volume because if you want leverage trading… you probably can’t do it anymore in China”
COO Ben Delo also weighed in on the recent interference into Chinese bitcoin exchanges’ operations on the part of regulators. “I think the regulatory actions in China are not so much about bitcoin as they are about currency controls. They let you send RMB in and buy and sell bitcoin, you just can’t withdraw that bitcoin, you can’t take it out of China – it’s wanting to avoid the appearance of capital leaving the country by that mechanism.”
COO Ben Delo Highlighted Concerns That Bitcoin Speculation May Be Undermining Bitcoin’s Ability to Reach Its Full Potential
The Bitmex representatives expressed strong skepticism with regards to the People’s Bank of China considering issuing RMP via blockchain technology, articulating strong warning against the political ambitions that may be realized through such a project. “They want to get rid of cash.” said Delo. “They want to control it. Already people are using Alipay and WeChat pay to handle day-to-day transactions. They want to take it a step further. By introducing electronic RMB it may have certain blockchain elements but ultimately it will all be controlled by the government. They want to track every movement of every bit of cash”
When discussing what’s in store for the next generation of bitcoin businesses, COO Ben Delo highlighted concerns that bitcoin speculation may be undermining bitcoin’s ability to reach its full potential in terms of utility, and that future successful start-ups may seek to reconcile and circumvent said antagonism. “In some parts of Africa you’ve got some people using phone credit as a form of money. Tech like Bitcoin could provide the world with banking facilities without the need to actually setup infrastructure. At the moment you can’t do that because Bitcoin is a volatile, speculative currency. But once people build the next generation of cryptocurrency wallets, they will start offering something like a bitcoin-backed US dollar, that is worth a US dollar, and be transacted on a blockchain. Once you’ve got that you can start offering banking to the unbanked just on an app.” Only from this basis, Delo speculated, can products such as peer-to-peer finance, insurance, investments options, etc., be sustainably delivered via blockchain technology.
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Images courtesy of Shutterstock & Bitmex
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