3AC Founders’ Open Exchange Completes Its $25 Million Fundraise

The highly controversial “Open Exchange” (OPNX) headed by once-failed Crypto CEOs has reached its fundraising goal of $25 million – though the founders are yet to reveal their benefactors.

Meanwhile, collapsed crypto exchange CoinFLEX has revealed that its restructuring deal has been approved by a Seychelles court, briefly pumping the price of its token. 

OPNX’s Plans for Launch

According to a Twitter thread from DefiIgnas (that was later retweeted by co-founder Zhu Su), Kyle Davies contacted the DeFi researcher late on Monday with news that the fundraiser was now complete. 

Leaked in January, the raise will help build an exchange for trading the bankruptcy claims of other fallen crypto exchanges and firms that let creditors out to dry during the 2022 bear market. 

“Users will be onboarded via a Special Purpose Vehicle, which is sometimes called a bankruptcy-remote entity,” explained Ignas. The exchange will abide by know your customer (KYC) rules, and will not be available to American citizens. 

When officially announced last month, Zhu Su – once a co-leader of the now defunct Three Arrow Capital (3AC) hedge fund – said creditors had agreed that starting the new exchange would be “ the wisest way to use our existing resources.” Yet many were skeptical about the actual practicality of launching an exchange based on bankruptcy claims – which are highly personalized and not nearly as fungible as standard tokens and cryptocurrencies.

Ignas said similar claims at OPNX will be grouped and tokenized, in order to increase fungibility, and traded on the order book exchange. Withdrawals for these tokens will not be enabled to ensure they don’t end up in the hands of U.S. citizens.

Customers can even use bankruptcy claims as collateral to trade perpetual futures. Lending and borrowing for stablecoins and other cryptos, however, will not be available. 

The Fate of CoinFLEX

On Tuesday, CoinFLEX published a blog post stating that its restructuring plan had been approved. While awaiting a written order from the court before providing further details, Ignas’s thread claims OPNX will acquire all assets from CoinFLEX – including its “people, tech, and tokens.”

CoinFLEX CEO Mark Lamb joined the 3AC duo in creating OPNX after a failed loan agreement with Roger Ver rendered his company insolvent. The former exchange’s native token, FLEX, will now be used as OPNX’s main token. 

As Ignas specified, FLEX will be usable for paying fees and will be subject to a buy-back-and-burn using 20% of OPNX’s revenue. “There are currently 100 million FLEX tokens in circulation, of which 2 million have already been burned through fees,” he explained. 

FLEX may also experience a rebranding at a 1:1 ratio with a new token, much like the DeFi tokens AAVE/LEND. 

Davies also reportedly proposed suing Genesis and Grayscale in order to maximize the value of the bankruptcy estate. This would follow a similar move from Alameda, which sued Grayscale on Monday for not allowing its customers to redeem their shares for Bitcoin or Ethereum.