Crypto-focused asset management giant Pantera Capital is reportedly raising money from large investors to buy Solana (SOL) tokens held by the estate of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Panthera is seeking to raise funds for the Pantera Solana Fund which aims to buy up to $250 million worth of SOL. That is according to marketing materials sent to prospective investors.
Crypto Asset Manager Panthera Raising Funds to Buy SOL Tokens Held by FTX Exchange
Investors would be agreeing to a vesting period of four years to buy part of the Solana held by the exchange founded by disgraced former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. The Panthera Solana Fund will be purchasing the SOL at $59.95, which is 39% below its 30-day average and nearly 60% lower than its $146.69 market price per token, at the time of writing.
Prospective investors would be putting in at least $25 million each into the fund and will be charged a management fee of 0.75%. Additionally, there will be a performance cut of 10%.
According to Panthera’s pitch deck, the FTX estate holds approximately 10% of the total supply of Solana, or 41.1 million SOL, worth roughly $5.4 billion.
Solana was one of the biggest investments made by FTX’s co-founder and former CEO Bankman-Fried. During his trial in November of last year, he revealed that he had been buying the tokens since way back when it was trading at roughly $0.20.
Panthera was looking to close the fund by the end of February, with unnamed sources confirming to Bloomberg that the company even managed to raise some money, but the figure was not disclosed.
FTX in the Process of Settling Creditors and Refunding Customers Who Lost Funds
The potential sale of SOL tokens would allow FTX’s liquidators to start repaying investors who were affected by the now-bankrupt exchange’s collapse in November 2022.
Earlier this week, FTX and BlockFi – the crypto lending firm that declared bankruptcy in July 2022, reached an “in principle” agreement to settle their disputes. According to a court filing, FTX has agreed to pay $874.5 million to BlockFi and drop its claims against the firm.
The settlement would resolve BlockFi’s claims against the defunct exchange and also see FTX waive “millions of dollars of avoidance claims and other counterclaims” against the collapsed crypto lender.
The $874.5 million is made up of a $185.2 million claim against FTX that represents the value of BlockFi’s customer assets that were deposited on the exchange, along with a $689.3 million claim against Alameda Research – a quantitative crypto trading firm affiliated with FTX – for the loans it received from BlockFi.
The nearly $1 billion loan given to FTX was almost entirely collateralized by its in-exchange FTT token, which fell nearly 99% after the company declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. BlockFi had also sued Bankman-Fried’s holding company to recover 56 million in Robinhood shares that were allegedly pledged as collateral for its loans to Alameda Research.
BlockFi owes FTX up to $275 million under a 2022 rescue loan deal, when the exchange reached an agreement to purchase the crypto lender’s assets to help it settle creditors and also acquire the company.
Meanwhile, FTX is in the final stages of its bankruptcy process, with plans to fully repay the billions owed to customers. Late last month, the company received permission from the court to unload more than $1 billion worth of shares in artificial intelligence company Anthropic to refund creditors.
Related News: Solana-Based DeFi Protocol Kamino Prepares For KMNO Token Airdrop In April
