Ben Zhou says BitMEX’s closure marks the end of an era for perpetual swaps

Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou commented on BitMEX’s shutdown, calling the exchange the creator of the perpetual futures product and crediting it with shaping a large part of the crypto derivatives market. In his post, Zhou said BitMEX had once become the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, was used by millions of traders, and inspired a number of other platforms, including Bybit, to adopt the same product model. He added that although BitMEX later faced regulatory intervention, the perpetual contract itself survived that period and remains in use today. Zhou said the product has now become one of the crypto industry’s core offerings and is gradually gaining compliant status in jurisdictions including the European Union, Dubai through VARA, and Hong Kong. He closed the message by saying that an era had come to an end and paid tribute to the figures behind BitMEX’s creation.