Pantera Capital says FTX crash had only a minor impact on its business

The collapse of the FTX crypto exchange has had only a minor impact on Pantera Capital’s business, according to partner Paul Veradittakit.

On FTX: this industry setback is a blow economically, but it’s also a blow on the trust and regulatory side of things for crypto. Going forward, what’s needed for centralized platforms is more transparency and governance. 🧵Full thoughts here: https://t.co/PN8r54uYHN

— paul.nft (@veradittakit) November 11, 2022

Founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed liquidity problems, but said that the exchange’s assets exceeded liabilities.

According to Bloomberg and WSJ, the hole in the crypto company’s balance sheet amounts to up to $8 billion. To restore solvency, it needs to raise about $4 billion.

Coin Metrics experts suggested that a large financial bailout that it provided to Alameda Research in Q2 2022 could have been a possible cause of the exchange’s collapse. WSJ sources confirmed that the platform provided the firm about $10 billion largely in client funds.

On November 11, the parent company FTX, Alameda, and around 130 affiliated entities, FTX Group, filed for bankruptcy.

“From Pantera’s side, we had a minor impact on the FTX platform, and we gained access to the exchange as a shareholder largely thanks to the acquisition of our portfolio company Blockfolio,” Veradittakit said.

He said that the more important task for Pantera was to determine how the FTX and Alameda collapse affected other portfolio companies. Bankman-Fried’s group actively invested in crypto projects, Veradittakit noted.

Checks showed that certain problems arose only for firms that have deposits on FTX. Pantera is helping them through options, the partner said.

Earlier, representatives of several major crypto firms said there was a minor impact on the Bankman-Fried business empire. But almost immediately BlockFi halted withdrawals, and Crypto.com imposed similar restrictions for USDC and USDT on the Solana blockchain. Both firms confirmed that the decisions were related to events surrounding FTX.

Sequoia Capital marked its $213.5 million investment in FTX as fully impaired. The firm said it did not suffer from the exchange’s collapse.

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