BlackRock Had Invested Over $24M In FTX

According to Reuters, BlackRock’s Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink stated on Wednesday that the asset management giant had invested $24 million in FTX before the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.

Fink, speaking at the New York Times Dealbook conference, reportedly said that it appeared as there were misdeeds within FTX, but he would not comment as to whether BlackRock and venture-capital company Sequoia, that had put $214 million in FTX and has subsequently written that amount down to zero, were also defraud by FTX.

On November 10, 2022, Sequoia tweeted that the venture capital firm had informed limited partners (LPs) in a note that it had reduced its $213.5 million worth contract in FTX and FTX.US, the American branch of the exchange, to zero.

SBF’s exchange owes more than $3 billion to its top 50 creditors, and the company is believed to have a total of approximately 1 million debtors. Bankruptcy papers were filed earlier this month after a chain of events prompted by Alameda Research’s (a trading firm associated with the exchange) balance sheet.

FTX Mislead Investors

Alternatively, the Wall Street Journal cited the exchange’s financial history and authoritative sources in their own report. It states that former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) pocketed $300 million from the $420 million that the defunct FTX exchange raised in October 2021.

SBF allegedly told investors at the time that he needed the funds to compensate him for the money he had spent a few months prior to acquire holdings that competitor platform Binance held in FTX.

Regardless of the outcome of the exchange’s bankruptcy proceedings, the Singaporean government investment firm Temasek has stated that it intends to reduce the value of the 275 million dollar investment it has made in the platform. In its announcement, the company said it looked like it had been wrong to trust FTX and its former CEO, SBF.