The clowns of cryptoland haven’t given up

YOU would be forgiven for thinking that, with Sam Bankman-Fried awaiting trial over the allegedly “epic” fraud at FTX, the collapse of a raft of crypto platforms and US regulators suing two major crypto firms for selling unregistered securities, the clowns of cryptoland might try to stay below the parapet for a while. But, sadly, you would be wrong.

This week the giggles and groans came courtesy of a new venture calling itself GTX, whose co-founders, Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, are none other than the co-founders of the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. The fund collapsed last year, dragging many other crypto firms down with it. It is being investigated in the US over whether it broke rules by misleading investors about the health of its balance sheet.

But this new venture, which is seeking to raise US$25 million “ASAP by end of February” according to its pitch deck, is not just any old crypto exchange. Zhu and Davies are partnering with the co-founders of CoinFLEX, an exchange that filed for debt restructuring last year as it sought to recover losses of US$84 million. Their aim is to set up an exchange that allow customers to trade their crypto bankruptcy claims.