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Sam Bankman-Fried, helms crypto exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research, is considering buying the assets of the bankrupt lending firm Celsius, according to a Bloomberg report citing “a person familiar with his deal-making.”
It is not immediately clear whether Bankman-Fried’s companies are considering bidding for some or all of Celsius’s assets, per the report. Decrypt reached out to FTX for comments but didn’t receive a response at the time of press.
Celsius replied via an auto-response email, saying that the firm is “working to respond to the many inquiries we receive as quickly as possible” and encouraged to keep up with the latest updates via the company’s blog and official Twitter account.
On Monday, FTX.US, the American subsidiary of FTX, won the bid to buy out Voyager Digital, another troubled crypto investment firm that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July this year.
Voyager said it had accepted the exchange’s $1.4 billion bid to be bought out, with Binance and Wave Financial being the runner-ups in a race to buy the bankrupted firm.
In an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box earlier this month, Sam Bankman-Fried said FTX has at least $1 billion to deploy on more acquisitions and bailouts.
Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy in July, was one of the crypto industry’s key players, with the firm’s liabilities amounting to over $2 billion.
Aside from lending operations, Celsius also owns Bitcoin mining operations and a crypto custody business.
Earlier this month, Vermont officials alleged that Celsius has been secretly insolvent since 2019 and that CEO Alex Mashinsky had made false and misleading statements to exaggerate the firm’s financial health.
Mashinsky, who was allegedly responsible for a series of poor trades in early 2022 that precipitated the crypto lender’s downfall, announced his resignation Tuesday.
“I am very sorry about the difficult financial circumstances members of our community are facing,” Mashinsky said in a statement, adding that he will continue “to help the community unite behind a plan that will provide the best outcome for all creditors.”
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