Sam Bankman-Fried Denies Rumors He’s Planning to Acquire Huobi

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried also called SBM has denied all rumors suggesting that he has plans to acquire giant crypto exchange Huobi. According to a tweet that he posted on Monday, the FTX CEO who manages assets at Alameda Research said he does not directly nor indirectly plan to acquire Huobi. 

Although it has been announced that Leon Li, co-founder at Huobi is considering selling his majority stake which is worth over $1 billion at current market value. The total value of the firm is $3 billion at present. 

In the past, both FTX and Alameda Research always tried to bail out crashing crypto firms that are either faced with liquidity crises or bankruptcy. 

During an interview in June, SBM mentioned that FTX and Alameda Research have “a responsibility to seriously consider stepping in, even if it is at a loss to ourselves, to stem contagion” as it would be “healthy for the ecosystem.” 

FTX Comes to The Rescue of Many Troubled Crypto Firms

FTX had considered acquiring bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius to assist the troubled firm. 

Shortly after its initial push, the Bahamian cryptocurrency exchange announced that it was no longer interested in the acquisition. The firm said its reason for drawing back is the terrible state in which it found Celsius in. A sum of $2 billion was missing from the crypto lender’s balance sheet and it could not be accounted for.

Likewise, BlockFi received a credit line of up to $400 million from the United States arm of Sam Bankman-Fried crypto exchange. He had received an option to acquire the entire firm for only $240 million while the minimum price for the acquisition is $15 million. 

FTX had also been in a duel to purchase another distressed crypto lender Voyager Digital. The bid for the beleaguered lender’s sales is still due till September 6th.

Other crypto firms which FTX has shown interest in are Robinhood and Bitvo. Sam Bankman-Fried has successfully acquired Japanese exchange Liquid.

It is also rumored that the founder of the Tron blockchain network, Justin Sun, is also interested in bidding for the Huobi stake. Interestingly, Sun has denied expressing interest in acquiring the crypto exchange. 

Consequently, the Huobi native token HT declined in value after SBM publicly announced his stance.