The cryptocurrency market has been in a whirlwind largely because of the high energy consumption of Bitcoin. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced to not accept Bitcoin as a mode of payment amidst environmental concerns which caused a market crash reminiscent of the 2018 crash. It had put a lot of things in perspective for the stakeholders of the cryptocurrency sphere.
BitMEX, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, had announced to offset its carbon footprint by donating $0.0026 of every $1 received as fees from users. The recipient of the donation has yet to be decided as the exchange researches into suitable partners. BitMEX furthers that it has a responsibility to take a step in this direction. The exchange also stated that this is not the solution but it is a step in the right direction.
The exchange had been under a lot of scrutiny with the executives currently under trial. The three former executives of the exchange namely CEO Arthur Hayes, co-founder Benjamin Delo, and chief technology officer Samuel Reed are accused of evading the anti-money laundering laws as well as violating the Bank Secrecy act.
The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission had been investigating the cryptocurrency exchange since 2019. The CFTC had suspicions that the exchange had been operating as an illegal derivates platform. The CFTC had also given ample time to the exchange to strengthen their KYC requirements in order to exclude customers from the United States as it had been operating under a jurisdiction outside the United States.
Developments had been made in the trial of the three executives as the New York district judge John Koeltl announced the trial date set on March 28th, 2022. If convicted, the executives can face up to five years in jail and a penalty of $250,000.