Arthur Hayes: Taking the bus to mainland China in the early days to profit from Bitcoin arbitrage On March 10, 2026, Arthur Hayes shared his early experiences of founding BitMEX during an interview with Natalie Brunell. In the fall of 2013, he capitalized on the Mt. Gox withdrawal crisis by profiting from Bitcoin arbitrage between mainland China and Hong Kong. However, he soon faced reality and realized that short-term trading without a technical background wasn’t sustainable. To establish himself in the crypto industry, he decided to leverage his expertise in derivatives trading. In 2014, he teamed up with Ben Delo and Sam Reed to avoid the crowded spot market and created the derivatives exchange BitMEX. Source: Natalie Brunell