Extremely urgent

I almost had a heart attack when I found out that the CFTC is looking into BitMEX today. I’m just here typing out these legal posts, hoping that some of the more knowledgeable folks on this forum will see them and share the info with people who can actually make a difference and lobby for us. Those retail newbies who think regulations in crypto are a good thing are seriously clueless about international security, derivatives law, and US AML/KYC laws. They’ve got no clue about the history of forex and what Dodd-Frank did to forex traders in the US. If Americans don’t start pushing back against Congress, they’re gonna crush crypto like they did with forex. They’ll ban altcoins and impose such crazy restrictions on leverage that only the wealthy will have any real chance to benefit from the global crypto market. They’re setting the regulatory bar so high that making money in crypto will only be possible if you trade the top ten coins on spot. That’s just wrong and a huge mistake by the US government. But sure, keep talking about how awful BitMEX is and how you want the government to swoop in and regulate everything until you end up stuck in dead-end jobs or pushed into the futures or marijuana markets. You really have no idea how powerful and dangerous American regulators can be. Underestimating them is a big mistake.

They are trying to build barriers so that no new money would ever come into the 'wrong' hands--by 'wrong' meaning every other dude except for those who are in their circle. I understand your sentiment regarding this matter, and if such an is to happen, lucky are those who traded the hell out of crypto right even before this regulations were put in place and made actual money off of it. The lobbyists in America seemed to have gone silent, and those politicians who are pro-bitcoin have went quiet as well, which leads me to thinking that they released such statements to only garner attention and support from the crypto folks without doing anything in particular to have a fair regulation for crypto.

You're absolutely correct in this statement. However, I think that you are overestimating the amount of lobbying power that the crypto community actually has. Apart from perhaps a few big corporations that deals with mining/exchanges, there is really little to no lobbying power in the hands of individual users given how decentralized the distribution is, and how anonymity plays a big role. Underestimating the power of regulation in terms of choking off access is a certainly dangerous concept. However, overestimating the enforceability of certain draconian rules is probably not healthy either. The extent at which governments can control the network is very limited. The worst that can really possibly happen is a very lengthy process to transact fiat with any crypto.

this is what we're up against

The BitMEX probe is for offering services to US persons without being registered. It's already illegal to offer their derivatives markets to Americans. So, these seems like two very separate issues: US regulators enforcing laws that are already on the books, and lobbying to prevent further draconian laws. I'm with you. Unfortunately, the US and EU both seem to be pushing the AML/CFT agenda extremely hard and Bitcoin is obviously in their crosshairs now. Meanwhile, there really isn't much of an organized lobby. I know Coinbase has a registered lobbyist and a PAC, and there's Coin Center. But I don't think either of them are particularly interested in issues about leverage and derivatives. I'm not underestimating US regulators at all. I find the whole thing depressing, really.

You see the work of lobbyists is becoming harder in the crypto market which is why they are even silent about it and because they don't want to be tagged as those who are making the country vulnerable to external attacks by those who want to exploit the crypto market for their own selfish interest. We have read cases of how exchange sites have been hacked and huge amount of money stolen without any form of compensation to those who invested in the business. We have equally seen the scam people have perpetuate in the name of anonymity. These and many others are what is giving government leverage to do what they are doing and it will continue even to the most mundane parts if the stakeholders in the market fail to live to expectations of trading fairly.

I'm sorry, but the way I see it is if Bitmex has no right to legally operate and accept U.S. citizens are their customer in the first place then I don't think the citizens themselves has something to fight for. They will just be labeled as clients that are mislead to believe that Bitmex is a crypto exchange that can operate in US which they aren't. The only thing they can really do now is to peacefully move their existing funds out from that exchange before any IP blocks, or website restriction happens to their country.