FTX Estate Sells Solana Tokens at Discount Amidst Dispute

The FTX estate, as reported by Bloomberg on April 5, sold 63% of its Solana tokens at a discount, generating nearly $1.9 billion for FTX creditors.

According to a Bloomberg article published on April 5, the FTX estate sold 63% of its Solana tokens at a discount from their current pricing, after selling more than 50% of them. The majority of the defunct exchange’s assets are SOL tokens.

Sources familiar with the situation informed Bloomberg that asset managers and venture capitalists such as Pantera Capital and Galaxy Trading were interested in the transaction.

The insolvent exchange made almost $1.9 billion for FTX creditors by selling 25–30 million locked-up SOL coins at $64 a token. Solana’s initial investors included FTX. You won’t be able to buy or sell any of the 41,000,000 SOL tokens until the four-year vesting period ends.

The SOL token has seen a remarkable 743% growth over the past 12 months, thanks to the revival of the crypto markets and the boom of memecoins. According to CoinMarketCap, it is currently trading at $176.

Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital raised over $620 million to purchase SOL tokens from the FTX estate, according to reports. This money will be used to fund Galaxy Trading. The fund will charge investors a one percent management fee. According to the sources, the fund is also looking to make money from staking. The exchange received assistance in selling its assets from Galaxy Asset Management, a division of Galaxy Digital.

According to Bloomberg, Pantera Capital also managed to raise $250 million to buy SOL tokens from the FTX estate. On March 27, Neptune Digital Assets, a Canadian blockchain firm, paid $64 per SOL token to buy 26,964 tokens.

Critics among the exchange’s creditors have voiced their disapproval of the deeply discounted sale of FTX Estate assets.

After the exchange collapsed in November 2022, the court found former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of fraud and sentenced him to 25 years in jail on March 28. Creditors claimed that the exchange’s liquidators had violated their “property rights” during his punishment.

They have sold cryptocurrency holdings worth billions of dollars. Originally sold for 11 cents, the S&C [Sullivan & Cromwel] token now commands a value of two dollars. According to FTX creditor Sunil Kavuri, the company sold $10 billion worth of Solana tokens at a 70% discount, all because of a printing error.

Sullivan & Cromwell is facing a class action lawsuit brought by FTX creditors, who claim the law firm was complicit in the scam before representing the exchange in its bankruptcy.