The Silbert-Winklevii relationship dates back to 2021, when Gemini launched its Gemini Earn program, an interest-bearing program for yield-hungry crypto investors. In an apparent effort to reboot its business, Gemini recently announced it was seeking a crypto license in Dubai. Trading volumes on Gemini cratered after the Earn fiasco. Today, each twin is worth an estimated $1.5 billion. The Winklevoss twins, too, were also once worth over $4 billion each, per Forbes Gemini was previously valued at $7 billion by outside investors. Luno, a crypto exchange owned by DCG, laid off about 35% of its employees earlier this year. Today Forbes estimates Silbert is worth around $450 million, thanks to an early bet on bitcoin. Silbert’s 40% stake in DCG was once worth over $3 billion, after investors in the digital asset conglomerate sold $700 million of stock in a secondary sale at a $10 billion valuation in November 2021. “Which ones are more legitimate to be made whole is yet another question.” “Since this proceeding is mainly between two entities which have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, ultimately the funds will be taken from one set of debtors to benefit another set of debtors,” Fatemeh Fannizadeh, chief of legal affairs and a board member at the Swarm Foundation, which is not involved in the litigation, previously told Forbes. Lawyers for FTX alleged that Genesis “was one of the main feeder of funds for FTX and instrumental to its fraudulent business model.” Genesis denies wrongdoing and is contesting the legal action. Winklevoss now says in his public letter that the move was a ploy for Silbert to obtain “infinite forbearance” on the loan payment.Ĭomplicating the matter further is that Genesis is also now being sued by the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX (founded by former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried), which filed a lawsuit in May seeking to reclaim about $3.9 billion in cash and crypto assets from Genesis. The parties moved to mediation in May after DCG failed to make a scheduled $630 million loan payment to Genesis. “My speculation is that DCG floated a term sheet out there, and in fact did not have the alignment out there ,” says Ram Ahluwalia, CEO of crypto firm Lumida, who is not involved in the dispute but has been closely following the situation. Winklevoss also pledged to file a turnover motion, which could force DCG to turn over its assets to a third party to distribute them to creditors.ĭCG had announced an initial restructuring term sheet in February that would involve the Winklevoss brothers chipping in $100 million of their personal funds, but that deal fell apart: DCG says that some creditors “reneged and raised new demands.” (The higher dollar price tag appears to account for crypto prices skyrocketing between the original Chapter 11 filing and now). Winklevoss vowed in his letter to sue Silbert personally if DCG does not agree to Gemini’s proposed “Final Offer” for Silbert’s company to pay a near $1.5 billion settlement to Gemini Earn customers by the end of this week, as outlined in a second Tweet. Gemini had previously partnered with Genesis on its Gemini Earn program, which lent out customers’ crypto to generate yield. Genesis owes more than $3.5 billion to its largest 50 creditors, including $766 million earmarked for customers of Gemini, a crypto exchange run by the Winklevoss twins, according to Genesis’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing from January. Genesis Global Capital, the lending arm of Silbert’s digital assets conglomerate, filed for bankruptcy in January after making bad loans, including to FTX’s sister company Alameda Research, which shut down in November following fraud allegations against its founder Sam Bankman-Fried (which he denies).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |