BitMEX
Leadership History
5 leaders · 2014 to present
Peter Wilkinson is the CEO of BitMEX, in the role since 2026. The first chief executive was Arthur Hayes, from 2014.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Wilkinson | CEO | 2026 | Present | < 1 |
| Stephan Lutz | CEO | 2022 | 2026 | 4 |
| Alexander Höptner | CEO | 2021 | 2022 | 1 |
| Vivien Khoo | Interim CEO | 2020 | 2021 | 1 |
| Arthur Hayes | Co-founder & CEO | 2014 | 2020 | 6 |
BitMEX was a Seychelles-registered crypto derivatives exchange that shaped how crypto is traded. Its 2016 XBTUSD perpetual swap, a futures contract with no expiry held near spot by a funding rate, is now the most traded product in the industry. The exchange itself grew fast without identity checks, was charged by US regulators and prosecutors in 2020, settled and pleaded guilty over the next five years, and was pardoned in 2025. By then its liquidity had moved elsewhere, and it shut on September 23, 2026. The company is headquartered in Victoria, Seychelles.
CEO
2026 – Present
0 years (current)
Wilkinson urgently stabilized the exchange following the catastrophic 2020 DOJ indictments of the founders, aggressively implementing the strict KYC/AML protocols they previously refused to adopt.
Appointed as CEO during the company's darkest regulatory crisis, he managed the massive legal fallout and paid the $100 million CFTC fine to keep the platform operational.
CEO
2022 – 2026
4 years
Moved from CFO to interim CEO in October 2022, launched BMEX token trading, and steered the company through its 2024 guilty plea, 2025 fine and the sale process.
A former PwC partner who ran BitMEX for nearly four years before leaving in June 2026.
CEO
2021 – 2022
1 year
Settled with the CFTC and FinCEN for $100 million in August 2021, signed the AC Milan sponsorship, pursued the Bankhaus von der Heydt purchase and launched spot trading in May 2022.
Brought stock-exchange governance from Börse Stuttgart and repositioned BitMEX as a regulated-style venue.
Interim CEO
2020 – 2021
1 year
Took over as interim CEO in October 2020 when Arthur Hayes and Samuel Reed stepped back after US charges.
Held the business together during the first months of the enforcement cases and the move to mandatory identity checks.
Co-founder & CEO
2014 – 2020
6 years
Launched the XBTUSD perpetual swap with up to 100x leverage in May 2016 and ran BitMEX without mandatory identity checks until 2020, a choice that drove growth and later the US enforcement cases.
Turned BitMEX into the leading Bitcoin derivatives exchange of 2018-2019 and helped make the perpetual swap the industry standard.
BitMEX's final problems were scale and legal overhang. After the 2020 charges and mandatory identity checks, traders moved to Binance, Bybit, OKX and on-chain perpetual venues, and by July 2026 CryptoQuant put BitMEX at about 0.08% of Bitcoin futures volume, roughly $84 million a day. A sale run with adviser Broadhaven, reportedly targeting about $1 billion, failed as buyers balked at the founders' majority stake, a shrinking business and litigation. The exchange also closed into a weak market: Bitcoin traded near $65,700 on the day of the announcement, about half its October 2025 high, according to CNBC.
Peter Wilkinson, formerly global general counsel and COO, became CEO in June 2026 after Stephan Lutz, CFO Ina Steiner and chief growth officer Raphael Polansky left. He led the September 2026 closure.
A former PwC partner who joined BitMEX as CFO in May 2021, became interim CEO in October 2022 when Alexander Höptner left, and led the exchange until June 2026.
The former CEO of Börse Stuttgart, who ran BitMEX from January 2021 to October 2022, a period that covered the 2021 US settlement, the AC Milan sponsorship and the 2022 spot exchange launch.
In October 2020, about a week after US charges were filed. Hayes and CTO Samuel Reed stepped back, and Vivien Khoo became interim CEO.
Five: Arthur Hayes (2014-2020), Vivien Khoo (interim, 2020-2021), Alexander Höptner (2021-2022), Stephan Lutz (2022-2026) and Peter Wilkinson (2026).
Arthur Hayes was forced to step down as CEO in 2020 after he and his co-founders were criminally indicted by the US Department of Justice for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. He eventually pled guilty and served probation.
Compare executive leadership tenures and strategic transitions
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