Crypto Asset Management Firm CIO Has ‘Some Pretty Bad News To Share’
Recently, Travis Kling, Co-CIO of crypto asset management firm Ikigai Asset Management, shared “some pretty bad news” related to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX.
On 10 November 2022, Sam Bankerman-Fried (aka “SBF”), Co-Founder and former CEO of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX International, took to Twitter to talk about how he had “f**** up” :
On 11 November 2022, FTX International issued the following press release:
And here is how — on the same day — SBF announced the collapse of the FTX empire:
The following video from Wall Street Journal nicely summarizes how FTX went bankrupt:
Anyway, on 14 November 2022, Kling took to Twitter to explain how his firm had been impacted by the collapse of FTX:
He went on to say:
“We’ve been in constant communication with our investors since Monday. The amount of support we’ve received has been astonishing given the circumstances, and deeply heartwarming… It was entirely my fault and not anyone else’s. I lost my investors’ money after they put faith in me to manage risk and I am truly sorry for that. I have publicly endorsed FTX many times and I am truly sorry for that. I was wrong…
“There’s a lot of uncertainty about what’s going to happen next. In the very near-term, Ikigai is going to continue trading the assets we have left that are not stuck on FTX. We’re also going to make a decision about what to do with our venture fund, which was unaffected by FTX… Over the coming weeks and months, the timeline and potential recovery for FTX customers will become clearer. Right now, it’s really hard to say. At some point, we’ll be able to make a better call on whether Ikigai is going to keep going or just move into winddown mode…
“There’s a ton of pontification on bigger picture issues that could be done right now but I just don’t have it in me at the moment. I’m pretty disgusted with the space as a whole and kinda humanity in general… I’m at a loss for words at the depth & breadth of the pieces of shit that permeate crypto. So many fucking sociopaths were granted the opportunity to do so much damage. It’s hard for me to imagine the space bouncing back quickly from this ordeal. Too many got burned too hard…
“If crypto is to recover and continue on its journey to make the world a better place, I believe the entire concept of trust has to be completely rearchitected. Bitcoin is trustless. Then we built all these trusted things around it, and those things have failed catastrophically… It’s obvious now that the space has not done enough to identify and expel bad actors. We’re letting way too many sociopaths get way too powerful and then we all pay the price. If Ikigai continues on, we pledge to fight harder in this regard. It’s a fight worth fighting.“
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