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FTX closes in on a deal to buy embattled crypto lender BlockFi for $25M
- exabrial 4y ago> An FTX spokesperson said the company “would not be commenting on the matter.” A BlockFi spokesperson said the company “does not comment on market rumors.” Ok so how is this substantiated? Flagged, and this news source is now marked as "Fake News" in my feed. This looks more like a hit piece on BlockFi to trigger a collapse.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tricky 4y agoHow much money did they raise? like $1.2 billion? yikes. - edit - no, from what I can find they raised $100M then $350M last July and were looking to raise $500M earlier this month on a down round. Still... yikes.
- akgoel 4y agoMy VC funds tried to raise a down round 2 weeks ago, and I got upset because nowhere did they discuss the possibility of imminent bankruptcy.
- blitzar 4y agoI am deeply disappointed in myself that I havent raised 500mil from one of the "master of the universe" VC's for a crypto vapourware project.
- xiaolingxiao 4y agoDid you say your vc fund? As in a fund or vc funded startup
- akgoel 4y agoI have invested in a fund that invested in blockfi in 2019, and they came back to ask for a follow-on a couple weeks ago, probably to bail out their last two funding rounds.
- atlasunshrugged 4y agoInteresting, I guess FTX is really in it to save the ecosystem but not sure the value for an investor (unless their portfolio is all crypto projects) to bail them out.
- quickcheque 4y agoI mean that possibility is implied. Backward and downward.
- bdcravens 4y ago"decentralized"
- sushid 4y agoWhoever told you BlockFi is "decentralized" is very very confused/wrong.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoThe profits are centralized. The losses are decentralized.
- fosk 4y agoAh, it seems like the crypto industry has borrowed the “too big to fail” book that also decentralized the losses to the taxpayer. Some things never change.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoGreed in humans when there's money around?
- bdcravens 4y agoI was speaking to the industry as a whole. The more exchanges and platforms consolidate, the more it becomes the banking system, but with more risk and more complexity.
- whatisweb3 4y agowhy? FTX can buy all the dying CeFi platforms if they want. nobody needs to use them as long as DeFi continues to exist and improve
- jc_811 4y agoThey were trying to raise funds at a $1B dollar evaluation 3 weeks ago. Wow
- atwood22 4y agoThey raised 350M at a 3B valuation back in March of last year. Crazy...
- giarc 4y agoHow do you spend that much money in such a short time frame? That's almost $1m/day.
- __derek__ 4y agoThis phrase comes to mind: "There's infinite demand when you sell dimes for nickels." IIRC, someone said it about Uber (maybe WeWork?) in Sebastian Mallaby's book The Power Law.
- bilalnpe 4y agoThe same was said about MoviePass
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoUber
- ntoskrnl 4y agoAdvertising is a black hole for money. https://twitter.com/BlockFiZac/status/1422189818667323394 https://twitter.com/BlockFiZac/status/1422189818667323394
- shmatt 4y agoI guess if you believe in Web3.0 the best place to park your money is ad agencies
- SilasX 4y agoSBF was just tweeting last week about how their (earlier) $250m line of credit to BlockFi lets them "navigate the market from a position of strength". And now he's buying BlockFi in a fire sale. SMH https://twitter.com/sbf_ftx/status/1539268631095152642?s=21&t=5ILOiEFLcD9ohTzGE314Bg https://twitter.com/sbf_ftx/status/1539268631095152642?s=21&...
- sroussey 4y agoIt had strings attached, and today is the result of that
- puranjay 4y agoBlockFi CEO was tweeting about how they took early action when the entire 3AC fiasco unfolded and avoided much damage. Alex Mashinsky was tweeting how Celsius hasn't blocked any withdrawals.
- kirse 4y agoWe take our duty seriously to protect the digital asset ecosystem and its customers. Ah yes, the "duty" to prop up the market that keeps your Jane Street trading games alive and pockets lined with billions, what a noble cause. I think if SBF pulls off his crypto market rescue he'll be richer than Bezos over the next decade. Depends how much Father Fed intends on crushing inflation.
- tootie 4y agoI'm still like 50/50 that SBF can sustain any of the rescuing that he's doing. The crypto space so rife with fraud and con games, I don't see why he's any different. He has been much more disciplined in keeping his business from overextending, but he's just positioning himself to be king of a trash heap. I'm sure he comes out of this plenty rich, but by comparison Jeff Bezos built multiple very real and very valuable enterprises and SBF has not.
- favflam 4y agoI saw an internal marketing pitch for Alameda somewhere on twitter. It appears that SBF made the decision to be delta neutral with respect to crypto-currencies. So, FTX/Alameda were cashing out into USD when crypto reached ATHs while other firms in the space kept crypto on their balance sheet. Now that crypto prices have collapsed, FTX/Alameda have the USD war chess to go on a shopping spree for anything/anyone that were not cashing out during the boom.
- gjvc 4y agothis knife has further to fall
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- can16358p 4y agoIsn't $25 nothing for a company like that in crypto space?
- Canada 4y agowell, it already bailed them out with at least $250M
- wmf 4y agoIt's a lot for an insolvent company.
- ignoramous 4y agoThe CEO, Zac Prince, has categorically denied BlockFi being sold for $25m https://archive.is/ASEe6 https://archive.is/ASEe6
- ilamont 4y agoInvestors: https://blockfi.com/investors/ https://blockfi.com/investors/ Long list includes Bain Capital, Winkelvoss, Arrington, Coinbase Ventures ...
- puranjay 4y agoCrypto down so bad that the Winklevoss twins are now fronting an (awful) rock band. They don't even state their Gemini affiliations in their Twitter bios anymore.
- minimaxir 4y agoAnd the NFT profile pics are disapprearing as well. https://news.artnet.com/market/as-a-crypto-winter-descends-on-the-nft-world-celebrities-ditch-their-bored-ape-twitter-profile-pictures-2134783 https://news.artnet.com/market/as-a-crypto-winter-descends-o...
- spaceman_2020 4y agotbh NFT profile pictures were probably the most fun part of this crypto run for me.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y agoBetter than laser eyes.
- mhb 4y agoPure gold: https://youtu.be/qBCpX_Ts5zU https://youtu.be/qBCpX_Ts5zU
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoOh my god. The cringe!
- superjan 4y agoHad to look them up. Among other stuff, they let you borrow cash using crypto as collateral. That sounds like risky business at this time. They seem to apply a 2x safety margin but that might not be enough.
- heurist 4y agoTheir over-collateralization requirements apply to retail borrowers, not institutions. If they stuck to just over-collateralized loans (for all borrowers), they could have been a great service that I'd happily continue using.
- muttantt 4y agoFTX/SBF is the only thing holding the crypto market from completely crashing into non-existence. He can only delay the inevitable for so long..
- aaaaaaaaata 4y agoDisagree. This feels like the strength of the smarter players in the industry protecting the industry and strengthening it, in the face of impropriety and gang tactics on the other side of the fence (TradFi). We've just never seen it before.
- bhouston 4y agoOr he ends up owning a ton of it.
- wedom 4y ago
- shock-value 4y agoYeah it's one man trying to fight the Federal Reserve (and other central banks). We'll see how that works out for him.
- okwubodu 4y agoThis has been disputed by BlockFi’s CEO: https://twitter.com/blockfizac/status/1542582904110317568 https://twitter.com/blockfizac/status/1542582904110317568
- ntoskrnl 4y agoDisputed. Not refuted.
- okwubodu 4y agoEdited. Thanks.
- YetAnotherNick 4y agoIt's refuted
- nodamage 4y agoThe way this tweet is phrased seems to suggest that it is being sold, just not specifically for $25M.
- christophilus 4y agoWow. I actually really liked listening to the BlockFi CEO. I made a cool 18% in the last 12 months using their interest account. Ah, well. I guess it's time to cash out.
- muttantt 4y agoDo it before you can't
- pavlov 4y agoYou must have extreme risk tolerance if you haven't cashed out from an insolvent crypto shadowbank already...?
- christophilus 4y agoYeah. It was play money, and I was just accumulating interest. I think most things in crypto are pretty shady, but Zack Prince struck me as honest. The main risk (I think) was the unpegging of the stablecoins.
- pastor_bob 4y agoSBF is ruthless. Getting Blockfi for less than he paid Tom Brady to put laser eyes on his twitter profile!
- fuzzybear3965 4y agoFake news.