The bankruptcy estate of crypto lender Celsius has filed a lawsuit against five companies tied to derivatives exchange BitMEX, alleging the platform engaged in fraud, manipulated markets and improperly liquidated customer positions during the chaotic crypto crash of March 2020. Celsius is demanding the return of 6,360.16 BTC ($490 million).Filed on September 12 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, the suit names Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC) as the estate’s representative. Five defendants are listed: HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services.Celsius also is seeking statutory, punitive and treble damages where applicable, any profits BitMEX generated from the disputed liquidations, and reimbursement of legal expenses.At the center of the complaint is a claim that BitMEX held simultaneous control over three critical pieces of the liquidation process—the pricing data that triggered forced closures, the system that carried them out, and the insurance fund that absorbed proceeds from some of the liquidated trades. Celsius argues this concentration of control allowed the exchange to execute sell orders far below fair value, with some trades allegedly landing more than 24% under the next available ask price. The estate further claims Bitcoin’s price on BitMEX dipped noticeably lower than on other exchanges as the liquidation spiral accelerated, worsening the broader market downturn.The lawsuit points to two specific dates. On March 12, 2020, BitMEX is accused of wrongfully liquidating Celsius holdings and taking possession of 1,325.84 BTC posted as collateral. A day later, a comparable liquidation allegedly hit investment fund JST, costing it 5,034.33 BTC; JST has since assigned its related claims to the Celsius estate.Also referenced is a BitMEX outage on March 13, 2020. According to the complaint, liquidation orders ceased once the exchange went down, and Bitcoin’s price started climbing again shortly after. BitMEX has previously attributed that outage to a pair of DDoS attacks.The filing arrives just 11 days before BitMEX is set to shut down its exchange operations on September 23. Ripple Secures Formal Approval for Singapore Payments LicenseAI and NFTs: Could Virtuals Protocol Revolutionize Digital Collectibles?Prokey Review – Should you Buy this Hardware Wallet?Crosswise Hacked Leading to the Loss of $879K