Farid Mahmoodi, a crypto trader and whistleblower, has raised serious allegations against the cryptocurrency exchange Bitget. In a Medium post dated May 13, 2025, Mahmoodi detailed his experience with the platform after his verified account, holding €260,865.88 in open leveraged trades, was frozen without explanation.
According to Mahmoodi’s account, he faced months of unanswered support tickets and an abrupt account closure. He claims that Bitget’s legal department offered him a $2,000 hush payment to withdraw his complaints. This revelation comes amid Bitget’s regulatory challenges in several countries.
“January 17, 2025, Bitget froze my account without warning,” said Farid Mahmoodi. He added that he was fully verified and had significant open trades during a crucial market event involving meme coins linked to political figures.
Mahmoodi also documents that after escalating his case, Bitget’s legal department contacted him with a $2,000 offer if he would “agree to withdraw all my complaints and not pursue the case further.”
Bitget was blacklisted by France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) in November 2023 for operating without a proper license as a Digital Asset Service Provider (DASP). The French regulator said that Bitget had repeatedly breached local laws by providing services to French residents without the required registration.
Germany’s Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) issued a consumer alert on January 29, 2024. The alert indicated that Bitget was offering financial services without necessary authorization. BaFin emphasized that only firms licensed under the German Banking Act could provide such services legally.
According to Mahmoodi, “I submitted complaints to the European Commission,” among other regulatory bodies and platforms. Despite extensive efforts to raise awareness about his situation and Bitget’s practices, he states that “No one responded. No one reported.”
In April 2025, Bitget halted trading for the VOXEL token following a technical glitch exploited by users for significant gains. CoinTelegraph reports that this incident led to criticism over transparency issues.
Malaysia’s Securities Commission placed Bitget on its Investor Alert List on July 28, 2024. The commission warned against dealing with entities like Bitget due to its unlicensed capital-market activities.
Industry tracker RateX42 reports that as of January 2025, Bitget has received warnings or black-listings in at least eight jurisdictions for operating without necessary licenses and other compliance failures.
