Coinspeaker FTX EU Sale Sparks Dispute between Bankruptcy Estate and Backpack Exchange
Tensions may have boiled over between FTX bankruptcy estate and Backpack, a wallet firm and crypto exchange founded by former FTX and Alameda employees. This is in relation to the supposed sale of FTX EU to the latter, which was announced via a press release by Backpack itself on Monday.
According to the estate, the sale or the press release thereafter may have gone on without any authorization or involvement from FTX.
Meanwhile, Backpack Exchange did a little more than announcing its acquisition of FTX. The firm also revealed that it has plans to repay FTX EU creditors.
The firm also plans to start a regulated crypto derivatives service. It believes that the licenses it has obtained through the acquisition will allow it to do so without any reservations.
However, FTX bankruptcy estate appears to have kicked back against this statement, saying that the transaction was not officially sanctioned under the US bankruptcy court-approved process. Their statement read:
“Backpack has not been authorized by FTX to make any distributions to any FTX customers or other creditors, including any former FTX EU customers.”
Complexities Surrounding the FTX EU Sale
Truth be told, the FTX bankruptcy court approved the sale of FTX EU to Patrick Gruhn and Robin Matzke in March 2024. However, there are public records that prove that the duo may have transferred the entity to Backpack merely three months later.
Backing up its claims, the wallet firm also noted that it acquired FTX EU in June, under the watchful eyes of Cyprus’ financial regulator CySEC. However, the CySEC would only come to approve the transfer by December 2024 after carrying out a full check of the transaction involved.
By Backpack’s calculations, CySEC’s approval means that the FTX estate is now obligated to transfer the shares as set out in the court-approved sales and purchase agreement.
Furthermore, the company also clarified that FTX EU would be rebranded as Backpack EU and would solely handle the redistribution of customer funds.
Interestingly, all of Backpack’s claims so far have been supported by former FTX EU head Patrick Gruhn. According to Gruhn, the change of control process began as far back as May 2024. While he confirmed the renaming to Backpack EU, he also suggested that FTX’s statement might have been an attempt by the firm to make clear that it has no direct relationship with Backpack or its planned fund distributions.
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FTX EU Sale Sparks Dispute between Bankruptcy Estate and Backpack Exchange