Nima Capital, a family office linked to investor Suna Said and real estate mogul Scott Maslin, has exited its position in cross-chain bridge Synapse six months early, breaking an agreement held with the company.
The price of Synapse’s token SYN plummeted earlier this week when a liquidity provider removed its liquidity from the bridge and sold almost nine million SYN tokens. The value of the tokens at the time was around $3.7 million.
somebody just dumped 9m SYN in 2 txes with 1 min apart pic.twitter.com/2iPBIl39Qg
— Spreek (@spreekaway) September 4, 2023
After investigating the activity, Synapse confirmed on X that it was its liquidity provider Nima Capital that had breached the contract.
On March 19, 2023, SIP-21, a governance proposal proposed by Nima Capital, was passed by the Synapse DAO. Pursuant to the proposal, Nima provided $40m of bridge liquidity for the duration of 12 months in exchange for a grant of token emissions for that period from the DAO.…
— Synapse Labs (@SynapseProtocol) September 6, 2023
Synapse said on X it had been unsuccessful in trying to reach Nima Capital but that “the events have no impact on the protocol and the bridge, which continue to operate as normal.”
Nima Capital did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Who is Nima Capital?
While Nima Capital is a notoriously secretive family office with minimal online presence, several players have called the recent event a “rug pull” as Nima Capital’s website has been taken offline and its X account is now locked.
Online archives show the company’s website as active in early 2021 before becoming password protected later that year. The phone number that was once listed on the active website is no longer connected.
A LinkedIn page linked to the investment firm describes it as “a single-family office with a private and public equity investing platform.” The firm lists seven employees including portfolio manager Hassan Bassiri, who previously worked as a portfolio manager at crypto asset manager Arca, and investor Yasmeen Drummond.
Said, who founded Nima Capital, previously worked at the investment firm Unifund. Said, Bassiri and Drummond did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Pricey Real Estate Sale
Nima Capital’s recent crypto activity becomes even more interesting in light of a sale of an apartment linked to the firm. The apartment is located in one of New York City’s most prestigious condominiums 220 Central Park South and sold for $80 million six days ago, according to a report from The New York Times. It’s this year’s most expensive real estate deal in the city so far. The buyer remains anonymous, per the report.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Said and Maslin bought a $45 million Silicon Valley compound from former JetBlue Airways chairman Joel Peterson earlier this year. Maslin is no stranger to the world of real estate having founded real-estate investment firms Woodglen Investments and Alpha Blue Ventures.
Synapse’s token SYN is trading around 35 cents, recouping some of its losses from earlier in the week when it dropped to 31 cents as a result of the liquidity event, according to data from CoinGecko.