Galaxy Digital Looking to Buy More Crypto Bankruptcy Assets After Deal to Sell FTX’s Coins: FT

Galaxy Digital (GLXY), the cryptocurrency financial services firm headed by Mike Novogratz, is looking to buy more assets from bankrupt crypto companies after securing a deal to sell bitcoin and ether owned by crypto exchange FTX on behalf of the estate’s management, the Financial Times reported.

That deal, from August, tripled Galaxy’s assets under management to $5.3 billion, according to the FT. Galaxy subsequently also received court approval to sell FTX’s shares of Grayscale and Bitwise investment funds.

Galaxy’s global head of asset management, Steve Kurz, told the FT it is looking to repeat the experience with other bankrupt companies. That includes firms FTX invested in as a venture capital provider. In December last year, the New York-based company won an auction to buy self-custody platform GK8 from bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network.

“We have a crypto venture team that has been investing off our balance sheet for five years,” Kurz said, according to the newspaper. “The record that we have on that side of our asset management business means we’d be a good candidate for something like that.”

The company, whose Toronto-traded shares lost about 80% last year, has applied for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) with Invesco. In April, it said it was teaming up with asset manager DWS to develop exchange-traded products (ETPs) in Europe.