Admission of guilt

Last week marked 2018’s marquee cryptocurrency gathering / giant circle-jerkathon, Consensus. Arthur Hayes, BitMEX CEO, was snapped posing in front of a bright orange Lamborghini. Later that week, he was the face of CNBC’s Fast Money.

BitMEX‘s rented Lambo / PR stunt

Two weeks earlier, the BitMEX team were in a huddle discussing how to slip under the radar an admission they’d been engaging in unethical and probably illegal activity.

On April 30, a groundbreaking post surfaced on the BitMEX blog, admitting that the exchange operates its own (previously undisclosed) for-profit trading arm. This subsidiary trades against customers on their own exchange, and enjoys unfair advantages not available to other customers.

The in-house trading arm and ‘anchor market maker’ vaguely referenced in the past, is staffed by their long-term friend and employee, Nick Andrianov.

Nick’s LinkedIn profile pegs him as the current BitMEX Business Development Manager.

TFW ‘Business Development’ is actually privileged insider trading

And of course we all remember Nick from back in November 2017 as part of the ‘Deutsche Bank Connection’.