Three senior executives are said to be leaving embattled cryptocurrency lender BlockFi, as the firm irons out a deal to be acquired by FTX.US, the American division of the crypto trading empire owned by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.
Exiting the firm are Senior VP and Global Head of Institutional Distribution David Olsson; Samia Bayou, BlockFi’s global head of private client investors; and Shane O’Callaghan, BlockFi’s senior director of institutional sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa, sources told CoinDesk.
BlockFi, which was caught up in a cascade of failing crypto companies earlier this year, escaped the iniquity of a bankruptcy court where the likes of Celsius and Voyager have ended up – but at the cost of agreeing to the hard-nosed acquisition terms set out by FTX chief Bankman-Fried.
Read more: FTX Could Buy BlockFi for Only $15M – or a Lot More If Crypto Lender Hits Big Goals
BlockFi was valued in the billions last year, but FTX now has the option to buy the company at a purchase price of $240 million – that’s on a good day; the actual purchase price could be even lower thanks to strings attached to the deal.
“I think they’ve chosen to leave because of disagreements about the future direction of the company and loss of equity,” a source familiar with the situation said. “Everyone lost their equity, or had it significantly reduced and reset.”
Olsson and O’Callaghan declined to comment. Bayou did not respond to requests for comment
BlockFi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
