FTX Closed Acquisition of Liquid Exchange a Few Days Late

FTX completed the acquisition of Japanese crypto exchange Liquid on April 4, a few days after the deal had been scheduled to close, according to an email to Liquid shareholders from CEO Mike Kayamori that was obtained by CoinDesk.

• The deal, which was first announced in February, was expected to close by the end of March, according to an earlier blog post by Liquid.
• Instead, Kayamori wrote in the letter sent Sunday from the Bahamas, where crypto exchange FTX is based and where it co-hosted last week’s Crypto Bahamas conference, that the acquisition closed on April 4.
• Kayamori had to wait until the beginning of May to thank shareholders for their support, he wrote, because some of them hadn't received their consideration.
• “There were some human errors,” Kayamori explained, but the delay “shows that the existing international wire transfer [system] is fundamentally broken and crypto (stablecoins) can solve this problem.”
• Kayamori’s email says that Liquid’s operations will be renamed FTX Japan and FTX Singapore once the company obtains a license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
• Liquid is being sued for wrongful termination by a former employee who alleges the Singapore subsidiary made her a “scapegoat” after it suffered a $90 million breach last year.
• FTX, which extended Liquid a $120 million loan in the wake of the hack before agreeing to buy the exchange outright, hasn't disclosed how it much paid to purchase Liquid.