Mysten Labs, the development team behind Sui, reached an agreement with the FTX bankruptcy estate on Wednesday to purchase FTX’s equity investment in Mysten Labs and Sui token warrants for $96.3 million in cash.
The repurchase agreement marks FTX CEO John J. Ray III’s efforts to recover creditors from Sam Bankman-Fried’s collapsed cryptocurrency exchange, a process that includes liquidating key assets in the FTX Ventures portfolio.
According to court documents, Mysten Labs submitted an offer to buy back assets from the FTX estate on March 16. The documents also reveal that the FTX estate has hired investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners (PWP) to work with mine.
Mysten Labs previously raised $300 million in funding led by FTX Ventures, with participation from a16z Crypto, Jump Crypto, A&T Capital, Apollo, Binance Labs, Franklin Templeton, Coinbase Ventures, Bixin Ventures, Circle Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.
The buyback transaction enables Mysten Labs to regain control of its assets and accelerate the development of Sui, a decentralized platform designed to provide secure and scalable solutions for decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
The move also demonstrates FTX’s commitment to resolving its outstanding debt and liabilities and restoring trust among its creditors and investors.
Bankruptcies and insolvencies in the cryptocurrency industry have proliferated in recent years as many start-ups and exchanges have struggled to adapt to rapidly changing regulatory and market conditions. The FTX bankruptcy case highlights the importance of due diligence and risk management in the cryptocurrency industry, and the need to collaborate and innovate to address the challenges and opportunities of this emerging space.