Matt Huang, the cofounder of Paradigm – a crypto/Web3 investment firm that backed FTX and its owner Sam Bankman Fried (SBF) – said his firm was shocked by the revelations about FTX, Alameda, and SBF.
“Facts are still coming to light, and there will be many lessons to learn. We feel deep regret for having invested in a founder and company who ultimately did not align with crypto’s values and who have done enormous damage to the ecosystem,” he said on Twitter.
Facts are still coming to light, and there will be many lessons to learn. We feel deep regret for having invested i… https://t.co/GoSAmM8AS0
— Matt Huang (@matthuang) 1668539269000
Last week, Paradigm reportedly said it had reduced its investment in FTX to zero. The Web3 VC firm informed its investors that it had “almost nullified its investment in FTX”.
Paradigm had invested about $290 million in a clutch of firms associated with former FTX chief executive and founder Sam Bankman-Fried. It also said it had no crypto asset exposure to the firm and were no longer a client of of the beleaguered exchange.
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“Paradigm’s equity investment in FTX constituted a small part of our total assets and has now been written down to $0. We never traded on FTX and did not have any assets on the exchange. We have never been investors in related tokens such as FTT, SRM, MAPS, or OXY,” Huang said.
Paradigm’s equity investment in FTX constituted a small part of our total assets and has now been written down to $… https://t.co/Lf83covjP1
— Matt Huang (@matthuang) 1668539270000
Despite the FTX bust, Huang is optimistic that decentralised finance can actually help resolve the issues that led to the FTX fiasco in the first place through increased transparency and security.
The blow-up of FTX has caused some to question crypto’s value. But the issues at FTX are precisely ones that decent… https://t.co/7T2LNCZulZ
— Matt Huang (@matthuang) 1668539271000
However, Huang did give a word of caution for the crypto investors and the overall crypto universe in the short-to-medium term.
“The coming weeks and months will be a tough time for crypto, but we remain optimistic about crypto’s potential and are committed to building towards the positive future we know it can enable,” he said.
The coming weeks and months will be a tough time for crypto, but we remain optimistic about crypto’s potential and… https://t.co/8u4DiN1pA4
— Matt Huang (@matthuang) 1668539271000
Huang is not the only VC investor to have come out in the open and acknowledged their mistakes in the judging the merits of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried and the crypto ecosystem.
Marcelo Claure, SoftBank group’s former COO who left the technology investor earlier this year,
said the FTX fiasco had taught him not to invest due to the fear of missing out.
“I have been reflecting personally on the whole FTX fiasco and it taught me one more time that we should NEVER invest because of FOMO and we should always 100% understand what we are investing in. I totally failed here on both,” he said on microblogging site Twitter.
I have been reflecting personally on the whole FTX fiasco and it taught me one more time that we should NEVER inves… https://t.co/Zbf8skT5p0
— Marcelo Claure (@marceloclaure) 1668293667000
SoftBank had invested nearly $100 million in FTX from its Vision Fund 2. The Japanese group is a part of a list of high-profile investors which had backed FTX, including Sequoia Capital, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Dan Loeb’s Third Point, Tiger Global and American footballer star Tom Brady.
“It is only a small amount compared with our overall portfolio,” SoftBank chief financial officer Yoshimitsu Goto told reporters at the company’s quarterly earnings presentation.
