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Customers of crypto firm Winklevoss will receive back triple the value of their frozen assets
Joseph Nair/Bloomberg/Getty Images/File
Tyler Winklevoss, left, and Cameron Winklevoss launched the Gemini crypto exchange in 2014.
CNN New York –
Customers of the Gemini crypto platform can expect to recover more than three times the value of their digital assets that were caught up in the FTX fallout – a rare outcome for creditors involved in a bankruptcy.
Gemini, the exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, said Wednesday that it secured a 232% recovery for customers who participated in its lending program, Earn, a third-party partnership that halted withdrawals as turmoil roiled markets. of crypto in November 2022.
More than 230,000 Gemini customers lost access to approximately $940 million in digital assets. In the year and a half since then, crypto staged a comebackbringing the value of frozen funds to $2.18 billion.
“We are thrilled to have achieved this recovery for our customers. We recognize the difficulties caused by this long process and appreciate our customers’ continued support and patience throughout the process,” said Cameron Winklevoss, president of Gemini, in a statement.
Gemini agreed in February to return at least $1.1 billion to loan program customers and pay a $37 million fine for unsafe and harmful practices such as part of a settlement with the New York Department of Financial Services.
Wednesday’s announcement accounts for the cryptocurrency’s appreciation, adding more than US$1 billion to the total.
If, for example, a customer lent one bitcoin under the Earn program, he can now expect to receive one bitcoin back.
Around the time FTX imploded, causing chaos in the crypto markets, bitcoin fell precipitously to around $17,500. A year and a half later, one bitcoin is worth just under US$70,000.
Earn customers can expect to receive the remaining balance of their assets within the next 12 months, Gemini said.
Customers of FTX, once the second-largest crypto exchange on the planet, are also expected to be recouped, with interest, thanks in part to the growing value of FTX’s crypto holdings and the smart bets on artificial intelligence that it has been able to settle.