• Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is exiting Japan and deregistering from the Financial Services Agency as of Jan. 31.
• Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain has agreed to sell its Helios mining facility in Texas to Galaxy Digital for $65 million and will receive a new $35 million loan from financier Mike Novogratz’s crypto-focused financial-services firm.
• Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from Alameda Research, the trading firm he owned, to purchase his stake in trading app Robinhood Markets.
Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has announced it will exit Japan and deregister from the Financial Services Agency as of Jan. 31. The decision was prompted by “current market conditions in Japan in combination with a weak crypto market globally,” the company said in a blog post. Users in the country have until the end of next month to withdraw their fiat and crypto holdings, with the option of transferring crypto to another wallet or wiring Japanese yen to a local bank.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain has agreed to sell its Helios mining facility in Dickens Country, Texas, to Galaxy Digital for $65 million. The miner will also receive a new $35 million loan from financier Mike Novogratz’s crypto-focused financial-services firm, which will be secured by Argo’s mining equipment. The transaction will help Argo bolster its balance sheet and avoid bankruptcy after it found itself in a precarious situation when a deal for $27 million in funding fell through in October.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried also made headlines after revealing he borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from Alameda Research, the trading firm he owned, to purchase his stake in trading app Robinhood Markets. In an affidavit provided to a Caribbean court before his arrest, Bankman-Fried said he and FTX co-founder Gary Wang had struck a deal with representatives of Robinhood in August 2020 under which they received equity in the trading app in exchange for a loan of $400 million. Bankman-Fried also said the loan was secured by his and Wang’s shares in FTX, which were valued at around $2 billion at the time.