The founders of defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) have successfully raised funds for their new venture.
On Tuesday, DeFi researcher Ignas shared a screenshot of a landing page to OPNX – an upcoming exchange founded by 3AC’s founders that will facilitate trading bankruptcy claims.
11/12 While I spoke to Kyle, I asked about the 3AC situation.
3AC was a very big client of Genesis/Grayscale and is likely to sue G/G.
This would follow FTX's Alameda which sued Grayscale and its owner Digital Currency Group over the structure of their large BTC and ETH trusts.
— Ignas | DeFi Research (@DefiIgnas) March 7, 2023
Kyle Davies, one of 3AC’s founders, supposedly reached out to Ignas to confirm that a $25 million fundraising deal had gone through, without disclosing the names of the investors.
The project was first introduced in January, then referred to as “GTX,” seemingly with the intention of putting a spin on the name FTX after the exchange’s implosion two months prior. After a considerable amount of community backlash, the founders decided to change the name which now appears to have been rebranded to OPNX.
Behind the idea for ONPX are 3AC’s Davies and Su Zhu, along with CoinFLEX’s Mark Lamb and Sudhu Arumugam. CoinFLEX was a Seychelles-based crypto futures exchange that filed for restructuring in August 2022, not long after 3AC declared bankruptcy.
Although none of the OPNX founders can call their previous ventures a success, their claims to have closed a seed round could mean that this new exchange could become reality soon.
The platform will specialize in bankruptcy claims trading, where creditors can sell their claims quickly without waiting for a long drawn out bankruptcy process to conclude, potentially years later. Of course, these claims sell for far less than the value of their deposits – for instance, FTX’s bankruptcy claims are valued at around 20 cents on the dollar in private OTC markets.
OPNX lists FTX, Genesis, Celsius, BlockFi, Mt. Gox and even 3AC among the names of bankrupt crypto firms’ claims trading it will service. The platform will let users leverage their claims as collateral to borrow more assets.
The firm estimates a market size of $20 billion and will cater to investors too small to qualify for OTC deals. They will need to pass KYC requirements and hence U.S.-based users will be barred from the platform, according to information relayed by Davis to Ignas.
6/12 Withdrawals of tokens will not be enabled to avoid the risk of tokens interacting with Americans as users need to pass KYC and US citizens are not allowed.
— Ignas | DeFi Research (@DefiIgnas) March 7, 2023
It also plans to acquire all of CoinFLEX’s assets and will use its native token FLEX to pay fees and for incentive programs.
