The cryptocurrency investment firm Ikigai Asset Management sold the rights to claims against обанкротившейся bitcoin exchange FTX for $65 million.
**Update**
We recently sold our $65mm claim in the FTX bankruptcy.
We got a price we were happy with and a price that was much, much higher than we were expecting just six months ago.
Ikigai will continue operating as an investment business.
— Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) December 22, 2023
The company\’s CIO, Travis Kling, did not disclose the amount of proceeds in his statement. He stressed that Ikigai received a price that suited it, which turned out to be much higher than expected six months ago.
In October, media reported that the value of major FTX liabilities on specialized OTC platforms reached ~52 cents on the dollar.
Enthusiasm among creditors then rose on reports that the AI startup Anthropic planned to raise $2 billion, which would value it at $20-30 billion. In April 2022 the company closed a Series B financing round at $580 million, which was led by the crypto exchange. Estimates suggested that selling a more valuable stake in the startup would fully recover the claims against FTX.
In November last year Kling said that Ikigai kept most of the hedge funds\’ total assets on the exchange. The firm was able to withdraw a small portion before FTX filed for bankruptcy. He took full responsibility for the situation.
Unfortunately, I have some pretty bad news to share. Last week Ikigai was caught up in the FTX collapse. We had a large majority of the hedge fund’s total assets on FTX. By the time we went to withdraw Monday mrng, we got very little out. We’re now stuck alongside everyone else.
— Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) November 14, 2022
He said that selling the claims would allow the company to continue its investment business. For the first time since the FTX collapse, the firm opened new subscriptions for existing clients and attracted capital, Kling noted.
He added that Ikigai was interested in the revival of the trading platform. However the launch of FTX 2.0 proved so slow that waiting for a new version of the exchange became pointless.
Commenting on the market situation overall, Kling said a continued bull phase in the near term was possible.
“My biggest hope is that we as an industry will not miss this opportunity. What worries me most is that if we mess up as badly as last time, we may not get another shot at success,” he concluded.
In December, FTX filed an amended plan of reorganisation, with creditor votes expected in 2024.