Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Looks to Buy Crypto Exchange Bithumb

As the crypto bear market crushes players unprepared for the downturn, FTX looks to acquire South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb. This follows FTX purchasing Blockfi for up to $240 million and agreeing to purchase Bitvo and Embed Financial earlier in June. 

The news of the acquisition comes from a person “familiar with the matter,” according to a Bloomberg report. 

Bankman Friend, the FTX CEO, has been on a spending spree lately, leading FTX to make multiple acquisitions and loaning $500 Million to Voyager. The loan to Voyager is broken into two parts. The first is a $200 million mix of cash and USD Coin USDC. The second is a revolving credit line of 15,000 bitcoin, worth around $340 million as of the time of writing. Each loan expires on Dec. 31, 2024, and carries an annual interest rate of 5% payable on maturity.

This is no surprise, as an early FTX backer said Bankman-Fried is “out to win the whole crypto market.” 

Bithumb is Bankman-Fried’s late play, with the South Korean exchange making up the “big four” exchanges in the country. Reports of Bithumb being for sale have circulated since 2020, and the firm reportedly had been valued at $969 million last year. It currently handles about $560 million in daily trade volume, according to CoinGecko data.

Bithumb has not been without controversy among several South Korean crypto exchanges raided by local prosecutors following TerraUSD’s collapse. 

At this point, the acquisition rumors remain unverified, as FTX and Bithumb did not respond prior to publication.

Author: Garrett Meifert

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