Blockchain.com loses $270 million with 3AC

The historic crypto exchange, Blockchain.com, said it’s going to lose $270 million as a result of the Three Arrows Capital (3AC) affair. 

3AC goes bankrupt and Blockchain.com cannot collect on $270 million claim

3AC is a fund that invested in cryptocurrencies, which filed for bankruptcy a few days ago. 

As a result of the implosion of the Terra ecosystem, 3AC suffered huge losses, to the point that it could no longer repay its creditors. 

Later, the Voyager platform was also forced to declare bankruptcy due to its losses from 3AC’s default. 

This time it is the turn of Blockchain.com, which reveals that it has had losses of $270 million, again due to the bankruptcy of 3AC. 

Over the past four years, Three Arrows Capital had borrowed and repaid over $700 million in cryptocurrency from Blockchain.com. This time, however, it failed to repay the $270 million before declaring a default state. 

After revealing the loss, the co-founder and CEO of Blockchain.com, Peter Smith, also stressed that the company remains liquid and solvent, so there will be no consequences for its customers. 

That’s about $270 million in cryptocurrency and U.S. dollar loans provided by Blockchain.com to 3AC, but company funds will cover these. In fact, according to unnamed but presumably internal sources, the company has sufficient funds to cope with a loss of this magnitude.

Blockchain.com is one of the most historic crypto exchanges, created as far back as 2011. It created one of the first-ever public explorers of the Bitcoin blockchain and one of the first cryptocurrency wallets for web browsers. This year it even became the first cryptocurrency sponsor of the famed Dallas Cowboys NFL team. 

3AC strikes a blow to its creditors

In addition to derivatives exchange Deribit, Blockchain.com is reportedly among those creditors of 3AC that has effectively bankrupted the fund by demanding repayment of debts at their natural due date. This detail confirms the hypothesis that the company has enough equity to cover its losses. 

Blockchain.com is reported to operate 83 million cryptocurrency wallets, with 37 million verified users, so much so that it raised, in 2021, $120 million through a funding round in which funds such as Moore Strategic Ventures, Kyle Bass, Access Industries, Rovida Advisors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, GV, Lakestar, and Eldridge participated. 

They later announced an additional $300 million round, a third of which was funded by the investment firm Baillie Gifford. 

Based on these figures, the company was valued at more than $14 billion.