BitMEX is shutting down… Once upon a time, XBTUSD was the most dominant contract in the market; BitMEX's liquidation data used to be a must-watch for market analysis. It was the inventor of the perpetual contract but couldn’t hold onto the market it pioneered. In TokenInsight's 2026 Q1 report, 20 exchanges were selected as research samples. Even Hyperliquid, MEXC, Gate, and BingX made the list, but BitMEX didn’t even qualify. With its market share shrinking to this extent, it’s highly likely that its trading business has long stopped being profitable. As early as February 2025, BitMEX started looking for buyers. After a year and a half with no success, shutting down now seems like the most rational choice. Historically, the desperate exits of industry players often occur at the bottom of a cycle. The 2015 bear market wiped out a slew of small exchanges after Mt. Gox; in early 2019, Cboe exited the BTC futures business, and the market picked up just months later; and of course, the FTX collapse in November 2022. That said, BitMEX didn’t implode, there were no user losses, and its market share had already dwindled to the point of being negligible. So, this doesn’t really qualify as a panic-driven surrender. It’s just that looking back, it leaves us with a deep sense of regret…