While the importance of Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has waxed and waned over the last decade, one thing that won’t change is the fact that its founders — and the exchange itself — were charged with and pled guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act.
In fact, the crimes, as outlined by the Department of Justice, actually suggested that the founders had specifically designed the exchange “to flout US anti-money laundering rules.”
However, despite this, in March, founders Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed, and Ben Delo, and, for the first time in history, a company itself (BitMEX), were pardoned by President Donald Trump.
Few can argue that being involved with crypto seemingly benefits a criminal while Trump’s administration is in control, with Howard Lutnick proclaiming Trump the “crypto president” and crypto pump-and-dumpers and scammers getting personal invites to the White House for dinner.
What could ultimately be more important for BitMEX and its founders, however, is the money they spent on lobbyists for two years straight.
Read more: Commerce Secretary Lutnick wants US economy on blockchain for some reason
According to OpenSecrets, HDR Global Trading — BitMEX’s business name — paid nearly $800,000 between 2019 and 2021 to lobbying and consultancy firm Edelman.
Paperwork shows that Edelman was promised over $50,000 a month between August 2019 and March of 2021, with consulting work including everything from how to properly implement Know Your Customer (KYC) measures to standard crisis management.
The Edelman hiring seems to have been timed to coincide with the indictments of the exchange and its founders in October of 2020. Presumably, they were aware that their anti-money laundering and KYC rules and regulations were easily disregarded by US customers.
BitMEX used its subsidiary, Shine Effort Inc., to pay Edelman.
Of course, it’s not only lobbying efforts that benefitted BitMEX. The company listed TrumpCoin and MelaniaCoin on the exchange within a day of being launched and also offers perpetual swaps for Trump’s other crypto entity, World Liberty Financial.
Reuters found that most exchanges had listed the president’s memecoin within four days, which wasn’t only faster than normal but also likely meant many of the exchanges did less than typical due diligence on the coin.
BitMEX had TrumpCoin perpetual swaps available the day after the coin was launched.
A selection of BitMEX listed memecoins by time from launch until listing:
In February of 2025, only months before receiving a pardon, Hayes put out a lengthy, laudatory blog post.
In the post, he suggested that Trump launching his own memecoin would usher in an entirely new era of democratized campaign financing, and that the memecoin-for-politicians pipeline would bring unprecedented levels of transparency to politics.
It’s unknown if Hayes has purchased any TrumpCoin or World Liberty Financial tokens, but the coin’s creators, including Trump himself, have earned hundreds of millions of dollars from transaction fees.
TrumpCoin is down 71%, MelaniaCoin is down 97%, and World Liberty Financial is down 25% since launch. However, Trump and his family have never been richer.
