FTX Bankruptcy Estate Sells Majority of $2.6 Billion Solana Token Hoard
The bankruptcy administrators of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX have sold approximately two-thirds of a $2.6 billion stash of Solana (SOL) at a heavily discounted price.
The deal attracted interest from prominent industry players such as Galaxy Trading and Pantera Capital. According to the details shared by Bloomberg, the deal saw between 25 million and 30 million locked-up SOL coins sold at $64 each, potentially raising up to $1.9 billion for the estate.
Key points:
- FTX’s bankruptcy estate sold 25–30 million locked-up SOL tokens at $64 each.
- The sale could have raised as much as $1.9 billion for the estate.
- Galaxy Trading raised about $620 million for a fund to purchase SOL from the FTX estate.
Eva Weng, head of investments at Caladan, a crypto market maker not involved in the SOL transactions, explained the appeal of the deal, stating, “Basically, you’re exchanging time for a discount — you have to lock up your capital for four years, but you get to pay much less for the tokens.”
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FTX estate earlier paused Solana sale process
According to an email to a prospective investor, the FTX estate paused the SOL sale process in early March due to “significant buyer interest.” The estate has not revealed the precise quantity of tokens sold or their selling price, and the timing of their resumption remains uncertain.
Among the major players involved in the deal, Galaxy Trading, a unit of Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, raised approximately $620 million for a fund dedicated to purchasing SOL from the FTX estate.
The FTX estate is currently selling 41 million SOL tokens. However, they are not immediately tradable on the market due to a pre-agreed vesting period that will gradually extend over four years.
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FTX’s co-founder, the convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, was a significant backer of SOL, which formed the largest part of the digital assets stuck on the exchange when it collapsed.
Other notable investors involved in the SOL sale include Pantera, a $5.2 billion asset manager that was raising money for a fund to buy up to $250 million of SOL from the FTX estate, and Vancouver-based Neptune Digital Assets Corp., which announced on March 27 that it had purchased 26,964 SOL for $1.7 million.
