- Conversations about the acquisition have been ongoing for several months, according to Bloomberg
- Founded in South Korea in 2014, Bithumb has grown to become one of South Korea’s “big four” cryptocurrency exchanges
Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX is looking to buy South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb, prema Bloombergu.
Acquisition talks have been ongoing for several months, a person familiar with the matter told the news outlet. There’s no word on Bithumb’s potential valuation.
The crypto bear market has given companies with larger cash reserves the perfect opportunity to acquire struggling competitors. FTX recently reached a dio da steknu problematičnog zajmodavca blok fi za do 240 miliona dolara i pristao da kupi Bitvo i Embed Financial ranije u junu.
Alameda Research, another company founded by Bankman-Fried, also pozajmio 500 miliona dolara to bankrupt crypto lender putnik. Bankman-Fried is also Voyager’s single largest individual shareholder, holding 11% of the company.
These moves further strengthen the rumor that Bankman-Fried is actively using the crypto market crash to assert his dominance u industriji.
Chris McCann, a general partner at early FTX investor Race Capital, rekao je Bloombergu that Bankman-Fried is “not doing this out of the goodness of his own heart,” claiming that at this point “his ambitions knows no bounds.”
Founded in South Korea in 2014, Bithumb has grown to become one of South Korea’s “big four” cryptocurrency exchanges, alongside Upbit, Coinone and Korbit. Reports of Bithumb being up for sale have cirkuliše since 2020, with the firm navodno valued at 1.27 trillion won ($969 million) last year.
It currently handles about $560 million in daily trade volume, according to CoinGecko data.
Bithumb’s former chair Lee Jung-hoon was indicted in July last year after he allegedly swindled $100 million from the chair of BK Group, Kim Byung Gun. Bithumb was also among several South Korean crypto exchanges that were raided by local prosecutors last week, following investigations into TerraUSD’s collapse.
An FTX spokesperson declined to comment. Bithumb did not respond to Blockworks’ request for comment by press time.
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Source: https://blockworks.co/ftx-reportedly-in-talks-to-buy-south-korean-exchange-bithumb/