Why Didn’t Blockfi Take the $850M Deal?

C

rypto lender Nexo made an unsuccessful $850 million offer to acquire BlockFi earlier this year, according to an "indicative investment proposal" document obtained by The Block.

Last July, when Three Arrows Capital went bankrupt, BlockFi lost $80 million. However, they rejected Nexo's offer and chose to stick with a deal that wasn't yet final with FTX.US. Unfortunately for them, FTX filed for bankruptcy protection last week alongside Alameda Research trading firm.

"I can confirm that we offered BlockFi a deal in the summer," Nexo co-founder Antoni Trenchev told The Block. "It was a better alternative to the FTX proposal, but BlockFi's management chose to go with FTX. Since it did not make economic sense for them to go with a worse deal, we were perplexed and there were speculations about conflicts of interest."

Nexo was also willing to partner with others, such as FTX.US, in order to make its offer to BlockFi more attractive, according to an email sent by Nexo's head of corporate finance and investments, Tatiana Metodieva, in July.

In an email, Nexo proposed a non-binding offer to acquire BlockFi. The email also read that Nexo is willing to explore the opportunity with other investors should FTX decides to withdraw from the acquisition process for any reason.

Mike

An editor at Coincrop

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Mike is a Coincrop staff writer based in the UK, covering the best rates for cryptocurrency earning and borrowing products. When not at work, he's likely putting his latest car project back together.