Bitfinex Raises $1 Billion Via Private Token Sale
Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has raised staggering $1 billion through a private sale of its native token LEO, the platform’s chief technology officer Paolo Ardoino announced Monday, May 13.
According to him, the target was achieved in 10 days, with participation from large players representing the cryptocurrency industry as well as outside ventures.
. @bitfinex is able to raise 1b USDt in 10 days, in a private sale. Private companies, giants in our industry and outside, made investments for > 100m each. A legion of inside and outside users made investments for > 1m each.
— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) May 13, 2019
Some unnamed companies invested over $100 million each, while others contributed investments of over $1 million each, Ardoino claimed.
“Why? Because they know we are trustworthy, they recognize what we have been doing (without needing us bragging about it publicly) and they want us keep fighting for the industry whole,” Bitfinex CTO added in another tweet.
Paolo Ardoino added ‘a correction’ in the thread saying that, since there was some misunderstanding, most of the money was raised by investor who subscribed directly with iFinex, Bitfinex’s parent company.
Following Ardoino’s announcement the price of Bitcoin, having retreated back to $7,000 on Sunday afternoon, is seeing solid gain again. At the time of writing, BTC is 5.50 percent up over the last 24 hours, trading around the $7,500 mark it saw yesterday.
Bitfinex announced the token offering earlier this month, days after the New York Attorney General’s office revealed that it was looking for more information about the exchange’s alleged cover-up of an $850 million loss. The missing funds, which were held by third-party payment processor Crypto Capital, have been seized by several authorities, iFinex has claimed.
In its official white paper for the token sale, released last week, the exchange said any funds recovered will be used to “repurchase and burn” outstanding LEO tokens.
Bitfinex is also expected to launch a dedicated platform for projects to raise funds via similar initial exchange offerings next month.
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