Solana Up 13% as Possibility of Pantera Buying Some of FTX’s SOL Looms

Pantera Capital, a heavyweight crypto firm that manages $5.2 billion in assets, has started raising funds to buy $250 million worth of FTX’s stash of Solana (SOL) tokens.

Pantera is hoping to buy them at a deep discount. They’re hoping to pay 39% lower than SOL’s 30-day average price or $59.95 per token. But the deal would come with an important caveat: Pantera would need be willing to hold onto the tokens for up to 4 years following the sale.

The strategy was detailed in marketing materials for a Pantera Solana Fund that was sent to potential investors in February and then shared with Bloomberg.

FTX collapsed in November 2022 after it and its sister company, Alameda Research, found themselves in a liquidity crisis. FTX had made loans to Alameda Research. Meanwhile, the trading desk had borrowed funds and didn’t have the cash it needed to repay its lenders. There was a last ditch effort to sell the company to Binance. But after Binance backed out of the deal, FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down.

In September, a bankruptcy court gave the FTX estate permission to begin selling $3.4 billion worth of its Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana—with the caveat that it could sell no more than $100 million per week.

In the marketing sheet seen by Bloomberg, Pantera said it estimates FTX still has at least 41 million SOL in its possession. At today’s prices, that would mean FTX still has roughly $5.8 billion worth of SOL.

If those estimates are accurate, that means FTX still has about 7% of Solana’s total token supply and about 9% of the supply that’s currently in circulation.

The news so far seems to have gotten a warm reception from the Solana community.

SOL has seen a huge upswing since FTX filed for bankruptcy. At the time, it was trading for $17.84 and slipped below $10 before the end of 2022. But at the time of writing, SOL has reached a 2-year high of $142.51 and gained 13% in the past day.

Bloomberg reports that Pantera did succeed in raising some funds, but didn’t report specific figures. Participation in the venture would require a minimum investment of $25 million, with Pantera levying a management fee of 0.75% alongside a performance fee of 10%.