According to information from the Bloomberg news agency, Sam Bankman-Fried is considering buying Celsius assets. A person connected to the billionaire’s finances is said to be behind the disclosure of this information.
A chance for a high-profile acquisition
Sam Bankman-Fried is a well-known person in the crypto community. After all, he heads the FTX exchange, as well as the trading company Alameda Research. According to Bloomberg, he is considering buying assets belonging to bankrupt lending platform Celsius. It is not clear, however, whether Bankman-Fried is interested in acquiring the company as a whole, or only its individual assets. Representatives of Celsius, at the time of this writing, refuse to comment on the matter. The party representing FTX is reacting similarly.
Meanwhile, on Monday, September 26, FTX.US, or FTX’s US subsidiary, won a bid to buy out Voyager Digital. The company had been investing in the cryptocurrency market. Due to numerous problems, it was forced to file for bankruptcy in July of this year.
Huge funds at the ready
Sam Bankman-Fried, in a recent interview on the Squawk Box program for CNBC, said that the FTX exchange has at least $1 billion in funds at its disposal, which it plans to use for acquisitions and bailouts of failing entities.
The FTX CEO’s eagerness to rescue the market has been talked about for quite a long time. He himself has pointed out a couple of times that working in the industry obliges him to act for the benefit of market participants. Each acquisition is also an opportunity for the Bankman-Fried exchange itself. After all, users of the acquired entities can become automatic participants in the FTX market.
Celsius and its demise
Celsius is a platform that until recently was one of the leaders in the cryptocurrency industry. In addition to its lending operations, Celsius actively participated in Bitcoin mining, and also provided solutions for storing virtual coins. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the company’s estimated liabilities totaled $2 billion.
In early September, after a thorough analysis, Vermont officials alleged that the company’s management was insolvent as early as 2019. The insolvency was allegedly latent, as the CEO, Alex Mashinsky, made false or at least misleading statements designed to exaggerate the company’s financial condition.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, September 27, Mashinsky announced that he was resigning from his post. In doing so, he expressed regret for the difficult circumstances facing Celsius users. However, he pledged to continue to provide assistance so that each creditor can recover as much as possible of their losses.
