Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital who was a business partner and ally of Sam Bankman-Fried, said a revival of the FTX exchange is unlikely to happen.
(Bloomberg) — Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of SkyBridge Capital who was a business partner and ally of Sam Bankman-Fried, said a revival of the FTX exchange is unlikely to happen.
FTX’s new chief executive officer, John J. Ray III, has been assessing the idea of restarting FTX, and the current management plans to decide in the second quarter whether a restart is feasible. The legal team for FTX has warned that any restart would require a significant amount of capital.
“I think that’s an impossibility, personally,” Scaramucci said during a panel discussion about FTX’s collapse at CoinDesk’s Consensus 2023 conference. “I can see perhaps the technology being sold and maybe some type of rebranding, but I don’t see how you get FTX restored.”
Brett Harrison, former president of FTX US, also dismissed the idea. While there would be value in salvaging some aspects of the exchange’s technology, “do I think it can be done under the brand of FTX? Absolutely not,” Harrison said. While it’s possible that the technology and intellectual property could be sold to another company that would manage the exchange, it would be a “significant undertaking,” he said.
FTX’s potential plan to reboot its crypto exchange has attracted interest from Tribe Capital, a venture firm that invested in the platform before FTX collapsed and has been considering a fresh capital injection to jump-start the effort, Bloomberg news reported reported earlier this month. But any effort to reboot the exchange would face significant regulatory and compliance challenges.
Harrison said he’s cooperating with authorities on FTX probes as one of “dozens” of employees interviewed by investigators. He reiterated that he departed FTX US after management and interpersonal issues with Bankman-Fried, but didn’t see any red flags pointing to criminal activities. He has since started a new software startup, called Architect Financial Technologies, with funding from SkyBridge and others.
Scaramucci said he’s “disappointed” by the conduct of Bankman-Fried, who he helped introduce to connections in the Middle East and Washington. SkyBridge entered a deal to sell a 30% stake FTX Ventures just two months before FTX’s collapse. Scaramucci said it’s possible that SkyBridge won’t be able to buy back its stake from FTX, “which is OK with me as well.”
Last quarter was “probably our best” quarter in 10 years for SkyBridge, with Bitcoin soaring more than 70%, Scaramucci said. “We are sitting on ample cash on our balance sheet, ample cryptocurrency reserves on our balance sheet.”
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