Author: Weilin, PANews
As one of the pioneers in the field of crypto derivatives trading, BitMEX, which was established 11 years ago, has rapidly risen with its aggressive market strategies and technological innovations, and once became one of the world's largest crypto derivatives platforms. However, with the increasingly stringent global regulatory environment and increasingly fierce competition in the derivatives market, BitMEX is also facing unprecedented challenges.
Compared to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes, who is famous for his high-profile style and keen market insight, BitMEX CEO Stephan Lutz was not the original founder of BitMEX, and his early resume rarely had direct traces of the crypto field. After joining BitMEX as CFO in 2021, Stephan took over the CEO position from Hayes during the company's regulatory crisis in 2022, leading the team through bull and bear markets, and making comprehensive progress in platform development, user education, product innovation, and security lines, aiming to continuously build a more neutral, transparent, and secure derivatives trading platform.
Recently, PANews interviewed Stephan, who reviewed his journey from Deutsche Börse to BitMEX, and deeply analyzed BitMEX's product planning and strategic priorities for 2025. At the same time, from the perpetual contract screening mechanism to user education in high-leverage transactions, from AI-driven transaction analysis to copy trading and multi-asset margin and other functional iterations, Stephan shared his deep understanding and insights into the crypto derivatives market. In addition, Stephan also expressed his firm commitment to the Asian market, believing that the future growth of derivatives will be based on a more inclusive, smarter and more transparent foundation.
From Deutsche Börse to BitMEX: Connecting Traditional Finance and the Crypto World
In Stephan's resume, people would not see his experience with cryptocurrency before joining BitMEX in 2021. But as he said, this relationship is much deeper than it seems. As early as around 2010, he began to pay attention to distributed ledger technology. "At the time, I was working at Deutsche Börse Group, and we were evaluating whether this technology could replace the existing securities trading and settlement infrastructure. The answer was no: its performance was not enough and the throughput was not high enough. So I put it on hold for the time being," he recalled.
Despite this, Stephan participated in financial stability consulting projects for central banks in various countries in the following years, including central banks in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Middle East. It was during this process that he realized that in Southeast Asia, except for mature markets such as Japan and Singapore, more than two-thirds of the population in many countries still had no access to the banking system.
"These people are still part of the global supply chain. They were already using smartphones, and I thought, is there an opportunity here? Isn't this where cryptocurrency comes in? Later I started buying and trading a little bit, but it was mainly out of my passion for the project and the technology itself."
In 2020, Stephan reached a turning point in his life. When BitMEX invited him to join, he described that moment as "like winning the lottery": "I can finally turn what I am really interested in into my career." He joined BitMEX as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in early 2021 and experienced the rapid growth of the bull market in 2021. In 2022, BitMEX was accused by US regulators. Facing the trust of the company's founder, Stephan chose to step forward at the most turbulent moment of the market, taking over as CEO, and facing the cold winter brought by the collapse of FTX with the team. He admitted in the interview that this decision was not made out of the pursuit of a "title", but out of a sense of responsibility to the team, mission and industry.
Reversing the "peak when listing a coin" curse, revealing BitMEX's contract listing strategy
In the reality that many trading platforms "peak as soon as the coin is listed", it is no longer uncommon for new coins to fall rapidly after the first day. However, according to the first quarter 2025 derivatives report released by BitMEX, "Top CEX Perpetual Contract Listings: Peak Signals?", BitMEX's performance in the contract listings in that quarter was outstanding: 58.33% of the perpetual contract tokens on BitMEX listings appreciated after the first day, with an average return of 62.55%. In addition, only 41.7% of BitMEX listed transactions reached their historical highs on the first day, showing a sustainable price trend.
Talking about the reasons behind this phenomenon and the standards for listing projects, Stephan said, "When we list new tokens as perpetual contracts, we will conduct strict due diligence instead of listing all the projects on the market. We will start evaluating from the early stages and pay attention to the following features: The first is market interest. Is this token really interesting for our users to trade? This is not just as simple as 'someone is paying attention'. Is there real market trading interest? This market interest includes potential new users and existing users. The second is the community situation. Does this project already have, or is expected to build, an active and enthusiastic community? Is it likely to continue to exist after two weeks? As well as the project background and narrative, we will have an in-depth understanding of the project itself. The token needs to meet certain compliance standards before it goes online, especially if it is also planned to be listed on the spot market."
In addition, Stephan also revealed that BitMEX will also evaluate the reliability of liquidity and prices. "We must be able to obtain reliable price data sources. We usually evaluate which exchanges the price data comes from, whether these exchanges are formal and legal, whether they will manipulate prices, etc., to reduce the risk of market manipulation as much as possible and minimize the risk."
It is precisely because of such comprehensive considerations that BitMEX maintains sufficient "stamina" in the "peak as soon as coin listing" trend.
Q2 planning focus: improve liquidity, launch copy trading and multi-asset margin functions
When highlighting BitMEX’s second quarter (Q2) priorities, Stephan said that BitMEX will continue to increase liquidity for altcoins and newly listed tokens, and plans to launch a copy trading feature that will allow users to copy the operations of successful traders.
“If you look at altcoins and newly listed tokens, BitMEX needs to further improve liquidity. Compared with the fourth quarter of last year, our liquidity has at least doubled in these categories.”
Stephan said that the second one will be the copy trading function launched in Q2. "This is a natural continuation of the trading bots we launched last year. Trading bots can help users automate their strategies. Copy trading is different. It allows you to copy the operations of successful traders. We have many of the best performing traders and 'whales' on our platform. If you want to 'participate in their rhythm', such as following their entry and exit, you can use the BitMEX copy trading function that will be launched soon."
Stephan added that the third point of the layout is to collect user feedback, respond and optimize the user experience. "As a new generation of users enter the crypto market, we want to retain the core functions while improving usability and understandability to provide users with a good experience. The entire Q2 will revolve around this theme. Finally, we are perfecting the multi-asset margining function, which means that you can use more types of assets as margin. This feature will be launched in Q2."
11 years of zero hacker attack record, adhering to three core principles
In the increasingly competitive crypto market, BitMEX has maintained a zero hacker attack record since its establishment 11 years ago . Stephan said that BitMEX has always adhered to three core principles: neutrality, transparency and security. He introduced that since its inception, the platform has been adhering to the concept of "loyalty to the spirit of cryptocurrency" and is committed to building a truly fair and just peer-to-peer derivatives trading platform. BitMEX does not have its own market maker and does not gamble with users. The asset price discovery mechanism, including the funding rate, is completely neutral.
At the same time, BitMEX insists on transparency, publishing proof of assets and proof of liabilities twice a week, and users can check whether their balances remain unchanged through open source software. BitMEX publicly releases all infrastructure documents.
In addition, BitMEX sticks to the safety line, or more precisely, asset security rather than technical security. It still uses the industry-leading cold wallet custody system for user assets. "We completely isolate assets, so user assets will not be mixed with anything related to the company. BitMEX has built its own 100% cold wallet custody system since its inception, using multi-signature (Multisig), which is not even a standard solution for MPC (multi-party computing). As for hot wallets, they are to meet the needs of real-time withdrawals. Until about two years ago, we only provided withdrawal services once a day because all assets were in cold wallets. BitMEX's security rules are deeply rooted in the company's daily operations, and it always emphasizes "Trust, but verify". This culture runs through all our processes."
High leverage ≠ high risk, the goal is to help individual traders become more mature
BitMEX is famous for its perpetual contracts with up to 100 times leverage. However, when the market fluctuates violently, high leverage trading often leads to liquidation of users, especially for inexperienced traders. Does BitMEX have any plans to help users better manage this risk? Stephan also gave his answer to this question.
“First of all, we actually offer up to 250x leverage in certain contracts, but it’s not available to everyone. First of all, we believe that traders should decide how much leverage to use. In fact, 100x leverage itself is not the cause of liquidation. This is actually an educational issue. We always remind users in the platform documentation and provide a lot of educational materials on the platform and official website. For example: BitMEX Alpha series content; how-to guides.”
Stephan said that BitMEX has always emphasized that users should set stop-loss and limit orders, so that when the market fluctuates violently, they will not "clear their positions to zero" but can exit the market in advance. Users should set their own buying points, stop-loss positions, etc. As long as you have these basic operations, you will not be easily liquidated. BitMEX's goal is to help individual traders grow into more mature traders.
At the same time, from another perspective: if one party in the transaction is liquidated, the winner may also encounter problems, because BitMEX is a peer-to-peer platform, not an intermediate settlement counterparty, and will not pay for one party. "This is exactly why BitMEX has set up an insurance fund - and we have the absolute largest insurance fund in the entire industry. In terms of the ratio of insurance fund size to open contracts, we are even leading." Stephan added in the interview.
AI investment tools have yet to mature, and relevant products will be launched at the right time
In this interview, Stephan also talked about the current AI trend. He believes that most of the current discussions about so-called "AI-driven investment decisions" are hype words and do not really bring any substantial help. In essence, this is just the next stage after "trading robots" and "copy trading".
"This is a path that will inevitably appear in the future and a natural evolution. We will also launch such products at the right time. But I think it is not mature yet. Maybe in a few months, or even a year or two, there will be a mature solution," Stephan revealed in the interview.
Stephan further stated that BitMEX will use AI in the user interface (UI) layer in the next 12 to 18 months. "If you look at the foundations of large language models like ChatGPT and DeepSeek, their essence is not to provide 'knowledge', but to provide 'translation capabilities', which is a broad meaning - if you open a web trading platform now, no matter which exchange it is, you will see charts, order panels, news streams, chart trading tools, various KPI indicators... You need to understand and operate it yourself. Although it is not difficult, it is always a threshold."
He said, "In the future, AI Agent can be used for further automation. It can convert your voice into structured trading instructions and connect to the exchange through API. It can even be programmed to find the best price from 10 exchanges for execution. We have a more open interface (API), and the exchange itself is more flexible to connect, while traditional financial companies are unlikely to be so open."
Stephan said that BitMEX has another development direction and plans to launch a new feature in the third quarter: AI-driven trading behavior analysis report. This feature is analyzed by AI and gives regular suggestions. For example, AI will tell users: You frequently made transactions after the news was released last quarter, which means you reacted too slowly/too early and should be more disciplined. Your timing is good, but your risk control is not good enough. You are either too aggressive or too conservative, and you missed the opportunity to maximize your profits.
Continue to deepen the Asian market, education and risk control will promote the expansion of the derivatives market
Currently, BitMEX mainly serves the Southeast Asian and East Asian markets. The company has long adhered to the policy of "not connecting to US users" and maintains active investment in the Asian market.
Stephan said, “BitMEX has been pardoned in the United States this year, which involves a relatively long historical period, such as between 2016 and 2018. We are very grateful for this, but it will not change our current strategic direction.”
He said that the current trend is that in the United States, the crypto industry is increasingly dominated and influenced by traditional financial institutions (TradFi). In contrast, the Asian market will continue to maintain higher innovation and be more centered on retail and individual users. BitMEX will continue to deepen its presence in the Asian market, and its commitment to the Asian market is sincere and firm.
At the same time, regarding the further expansion of the crypto derivatives market, Stephan believes that the focus is still on the education part that BitMEX is already doing. Although there is a foundation, there is still a lot of room for improvement. Another direction is to create more accessible risk management tools. Looking to the future, he hopes to achieve an AI assistant that truly allows users to freely express their trading intentions and avoid "instruction translation errors."
Finally, he said that the natural path is to allow more people to enter the crypto spot trading market first, and then transition to derivatives. Many users usually start using perpetual contracts after getting in touch with the spot market. This trend will become more obvious in the near future. He explained that this round of bull market is not actually driven by a large influx of new users, but more by the increase in trading volume of existing users, and some institutions are beginning to get involved. So I think the next round of outbreak will not be three years later, but a closer one: it will be driven by two factors: AI lowers the threshold for trading and more people are willing to try trading because of trust and ease of use.
