Ripple is considering deals for FTX assets: Brad Garlinghouse
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated that the company would be interested in FTX-owned businesses that service commercial customers.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is apparently interested in purchasing a portion of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Garlinghouse told The Sunday Times on the margins of Ripple’s Swell conference in London, which took place on November 16 and 17, that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried called him two days before the company filed for bankruptcy in order to bring up investors to save the business.
Our 6th annual #RippleSwell is underway! I took the stage this morning with @cnbcKaren to discuss all things Ripple, crypto utility, macroeconomic factors affecting crypto, and much more. A thread… pic.twitter.com/EDHW3nyka8
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) November 16, 2022
During the call, the Ripple CEO stated that the two explored whether there were any FTX-owned businesses that Ripple “would want to own.”
“As part of my talk, I mentioned that if he needed financing, perhaps there are businesses that he has purchased or owns that we would like to possess […] Would we have bought anything from him? “I believe that was on the table,” he remarked.
However, now that FTX has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States, Garlinghouse admits that a potential deal for an FTX business will be “quite different than it would have been one-to-one.”
“I’m not saying we won’t look at those things; I’m confident we will.” But it’s a more difficult route to take,” he remarked.
The bankruptcy case in Delaware includes over 130 FTX-affiliated firms, including FTX.US.
Crypto clearinghouse LedgerX, FTX Digital Markets, FTX Australia Pty, and payments processor FTX Express Pay are among the subsidiaries not involved in the proceedings.
Garlinghouse stated that he was interested in purchasing the components that served commercial clients.
Ripple executives appear to be monitoring the newest developments in the FTX controversy, as do many others in the sector.
On November 10, Ripple chief technical officer David Schwartz sent a tweet to FTX employees, implying that “there is room at Ripple for them as long as they aren’t involved in compliance, money, or business ethics.”
Hey @FTX_Official employees not involved in compliance, finance, or business ethics:@Ripple is always hiring.
— David "JoelKatz" Schwartz (@JoelKatz) November 10, 2022
FTX has just chosen Kroll as its agent to track any claims against it and keep interested parties informed of developments during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.