Tribe Capital Reportedly Interested in Reboot of FTX Crypto Exchange

Tribe Capital is reportedly interested in joining a potential reboot of FTX’s cryptocurrency exchange.

The venture capital (VC) firm is considering leading a $250 million fundraising campaign after its co-founder met with a committee of unsecured creditors of FTX in January, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (April 18), citing unnamed sources.

Tribe Capital was an investor in both FTX and FTX US, both of which declared bankruptcy in November, according to the report.

The VC firm’s informal proposal discussed in January would exclude a VC portfolio, crypto assets and some other assets, and would include a new exchange that would use the FTX name, the report said.

Tribe Capital did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

FTX attorneys said during a Wednesday (April 13) bankruptcy court hearing that the bankrupt crypto exchange was considering relaunching after recovering $7.3 billion in assets, Reuters reported at the time.

“The situation has stabilized, and the dumpster fire is out,” FTX attorney Andy Dietderich said during the hearing.

Now, the company is working with stakeholders on a path to restarting the exchange, and could reach a decision on that move this quarter, Dietderich said.

He added that it’s not yet clear whether FTX should use its own money to relaunch, rather than using those funds to pay back customers. A restart of FTX could require third-party financing or selling off assets.

As PYMNTS reported Wednesday, FTX’s new CEO, John J. Ray, is tasked with creating as much value as possible for the bankrupt exchange’s creditors, including assessing whether undertaking a revival of FTX would create more value than just selling off the company’s existing assets.

Whether or not the new FTX CEO decides to move forward with bringing FTX’s operations back to life, Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C) lawyers are billing for their hours of work assessing any restart’s viability.

Various time entries included in the firm’s more than $15 million February bill show line items such as “analysis re: potential FTX reboot exchange reboot,” “review notes re: potential security concerns re: potential FTX exchange reboot,” “email correspondence with various teams re: working groups for reboot project,” and much more.