According to the CNBC report, US President Donald Trump has forgiven all three founders of the Bitmex Cryptocurrency Exchange. Co-founders and former CEOs Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo and Samuel Reid have previously committed crimes against various federal criminal charges related to money laundering using the platform. Trump issued a pardon on Thursday.
Just:
President Trump forgives all three founders of Bitmex Crypto Exchange.
– watcher.guru (@watcherguru) March 28, 2025
Prosecutors accused the men of effectively operating Bitmex as a “money laundering platform” and claimed that the withdrawal from the US market was “fake.” The trio were sentenced to criminal probation and were ordered to pay a civil fine of $30 million in total.
Bitmex Founders Walk Free
Hayes, Delo, and Reed founded Bitmex in 2014. The DOJ said Bitmex has been promoted as a platform where retail consumers can trade without real confirmation. This was until September 2020 when users were allowed to register and trade in cryptocurrency. Although we had to implement an AML program that contains the KYC components, BitMex would choose to abandon these requirements and only require that customers provide an email address to use Bitmex’s services. This has led former CEO Alexander Hoeptner to sue the exchange.
Just three months ago, Bitmex was sentenced to pay a $100 million fine for violating bank secret laws. Exchange failed to establish and maintain a money laundering anti-money laundering and “know your customer” (KYC) program.
BitMex’s former COO and Chief Strategy Officer Benjamin Delo was sentenced to 30 months of probation following a guilty plea in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Arthur Hayes was sentenced to six months of home lockdown and was on two years of probation. Samuel Reed was former Chief Technology Officer of the Exchange and was sentenced to 18 months of probation.
Bitmex Research has posted a congratulatory post to the founder of X, “Congratulations to Arthur, Ben, Sam and Greg.” DOJ has not yet commented on Trump’s pardon.
