Sam Bankman-Fried and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I mean….Voyager’s Bad Debt
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is the Harry Potter of the crypto world.
Think about about it:
Not only is he constantly performing (financial) magic tricks, but for a guy who sleeps 4 hrs a night on a beanbag in the office - a cupboard under the stairs would be an upgrade.
SBF's latest magic trick is focused on Voyager Digital.
ICYMI Voyager Digital are a crypto lending platform that recently filed for bankruptcy.
A lot of companies they'd loaned money to recently went under and Voyager were left holding the bag - as a result, their customers are currently unable to withdraw their funds.
Not great.
In response, SBF has swooped in and offered a 'three birds, one stone' solution; that offers to help Voyager, their customers and Sam's company, FTX.
Here's how the magic trick works:
Bird 1 - (Most of) the financial burden is taken off Voyager.
FTX and Alameda Ventures buy Voyager's trademarks for $15M, forgive the $75M loan they'd given them AND take on all of the bad loans they've dealt out (except for the Three Arrows Capital loan).
Bird 2 - FTX let Voyager customers access/withdraw their funds.
Bird 3 - Those funds can only be accessed if/when Voyager customers create an FTX account.
Here's how it all balances out:
FTX get a bunch of new customers (who will no doubt love them, given the circumstances) and Voyager's sprawling list of problems is massively reduced.
For Voyager and their customers, it's a road to safety.
For FTX, it's essentially an expedited form of customer acquisition - no need for flashy ads, affiliate offers, or sign up bonuses.
...it's kind of genius.
Right now it's unclear whether Voyager will take them up on their offer, but we should know soon - FTX have given them until tomorrow to respond.
(Watch this space).
