Crypto’s Easy Money Days Are Over, Warns BitMEX Report

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Written by Aaron S.,

Editor-In-Chief

Last Updated: January 09, 2026

Key Takeaways

BitMEX said October 2025’s crypto crash ended the long period of easy returns from derivatives and market-making trades;
Automated liquidations worsened the fall, disrupting “delta-neutral” strategies and draining liquidity from trading platforms;
Popular yield strategies, such as spot-futures arbitrage, have become crowded and now yield less than US Treasury bills.

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Crypto’s Easy Money Days Are Over, Warns BitMEX Report

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BitMEX $97.88K reported that the October 2025 crypto price decline brought an end to a long stretch of easy profits for traders.

The exchange explained that what once seemed like a stable system for earning steady returns through derivatives trading has changed.

According to BitMEX’s State of Crypto Perpetual Swaps in 2025 report, the market drop between October 10 and 11 erased about $20 billion in value. The firm described this as the most damaging event in the history of advanced market makers in the crypto industry.

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The report noted that automated liquidation systems played a big part. These systems close leveraged positions to control risk, but in this case, they created a chain reaction that disrupted common trading strategies.

BitMEX said the process broke many “delta-neutral” methods, strategies meant to balance long and short positions, which forced traders to withdraw funds and resulted in thin order books not seen for years.

For a long time, perpetual swaps offered traders a reliable way to earn profits. BitMEX summed it up as "farm the funding, capture the spread, and trust the exchange engine to maintain the walls".

The exchange also noted that the once-popular strategy of earning from differences between spot and futures markets has become crowded. As a result, returns from this trade now trail those of US Treasury bills.

Crypto derivatives trading increased in 2025 as more participants turned to on-chain perpetual futures, according to Coinbase $1.78B researcher David Duong. How? Read the full story.