Bankman-Fried Belies Bear, Bids for Bitvo

The Bahamas-based firm agreed to acquire Canadian crypto exchange Bitvo for an undisclosed sum

share

key takeaways

  • FTX’s acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter of 2022
  • CEO Sam Bankman-Fried earlier told Blockworks he expects a wave of M&A activity throughout the market downturn

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX has struck an agreement to acquire Canadian cryptoasset trading firm Bitvo, the company announced, Friday.

FTX didn’t disclose the terms of the deal. The announcement comes during a period of turmoil in the cryptocurrency industry, with asset prices extending losses in a broad sell-off for several days. Companies in the space, including Celsius, Three Arrows Capital and Babel Finance, have all disclosed liquidity issues, raising fears that more turbulence might be in store for investors.

The Bahamas-based firm noted that Bitvo secured the first license to offer cryptoasset trading services across Canada. It is also registered with the intelligence agency Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada.

“Canada has shown a growing interest in digital asset trading, and we’re thrilled to help provide entry into one of the leading regulated crypto asset trading platforms in the world to the Canadian cryptocurrency community,” Bitvo CEO Pamela Draper said in a statement.

Alberta-based Bitvo will be integrated into FTX after the acquisition, which is expected to close in the third quarter of this year. 

FTX’s valuation rose to $32 billion after raising $400 million in its third fundraising round within six months in January, indicating that it is well placed to make acquisitions in the space.

CEO Sam Bankman-Fried told Blockworks in April that difficult market conditions could trigger a wave of mergers and acquisitions, and that it “wouldn’t be totally shocking” for the company to acquire some shrinking exchanges.

In May, Bankman-Fried personally bought a 7.6% stake in trading platform Robinhood. In June, FTX expanded into Japan following its acquisition of a local fintech Liquid Group and its subsidiaries, in a bid to navigate the stringent regulatory environment in the country.

A recent report from crypto research firm Kaiko shows bitcoin trading volumes on FTX exceeded Coinbase’s for the first time in May.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

RTK networks are critical to enabling a world of ubiquitous autonomous drones, vehicles, and industrial robots. We believe the GEOD token enables both a cost and product advantage for the GEODNET RTK network, which will allow it to out-compete multi-billion dollar incumbents Trimble and Hexagon.

article-image

As EIP-4844 “blobs” transform the economics of Ethereum layer-2s, a growing debate pits long-term scalability against immediate ETH value

article-image

Prosecutors argued that FTX co-founder Gary Wang cooperated in their case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

article-image

The two largest crypto exchanges respectively run the second- and sixth-largest Solana validators

article-image

MicroStrategy’s bitcoin buying has exploded — it now holds 1.7% of the asset’s circulating supply

article-image

The MiCA era will reward the prepared and punish the rest

article-image

The market is, presumably, confused about what a Trump win means for the social media company