FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried said his company does not intend to acquire the Huobi bitcoin exchange.
Just to be explicit because apparently a lot of people are saying this:
No, we are not planning to acquire Huobi.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) August 29, 2022
“Just to be explicit, because apparently a lot of people are saying this: no, we are not planning to acquire Huobi,” wrote Bankman-Fried.
In August, Bloomberg reported that Huobi’s co-founder Leon Li was negotiating with a group of investors to sell 58% of the stake. Among potential buyers were reportedly FTX chief and Tron Foundation founder Justin Sun.
According to journalist Colin Wu, last week Huobi changed all employee email addresses from Huobi.com to htx-inc.com.
“There are rumors that FTX has completed the acquisition,” Wu noted, adding Bankman-Fried’s denial.
Last week, Huobi changed all employee email addresses from https://t.co/uiqrIPWAHO to https://t.co/JibBeOZb47. It is rumored that FTX has completed the acquisition. Bloomberg also reported that FTX and Justin Sun were involved. SBF said: we are not planning to acquire Huobi. https://t.co/vDbGFrik9V
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 29, 2022
Huobi’s native token reacted to SBF’s tweet by dropping from above $5 to $4.7.
Earlier media named Binance and FTX as contenders for Voyager Digital’s assets. According to sources, Coinbase was out of the running as a potential buyer—its staff concluded that the crypto broker’s financials did not add up.
In May, Bankman-Fried pledged to spend “billions” on acquiring stakes in other companies.
In June, FTX opened a revolving credit line of $250 million for the crypto-lending platform BlockFi. A few days earlier, Alameda Research provided Voyager Digital with a loan of $500 million.
Subsequently, the U.S. arm of FTX extended another revolving credit line to BlockFi for $400 million, obtaining an option to acquire the platform for $240 million.
In the same month, the entrepreneur rejected reports that the bitcoin exchange was considering buying troubled mining firms.
In August, Bankman-Fried accused giants in the digital-asset space of indifference to faltering companies.
Read ForkLog’s bitcoin news in our Telegram — cryptocurrency news, prices and analysis.