FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, has agreed to purchase Liquid, a Japanese competitor, for an unknown sum.
The business said on Wednesday that it has agreed to buy Liquid and all of its operating subsidiaries, including Quoine Corporation and its Singapore-based subsidiary. In 2017, Quoine was one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges to register with Japan’s Financial Services Agency.
The acquisition of Liquid is expected to be completed by March 2022, according to FTX. The transaction must be approved by regulators and shareholders.
“Following FTX’s acquisition of Liquid, Quoine will gradually integrate FTX’s products and services into its own offering, and FTX’s existing Japanese customers will be migrated to Quoine’s platform,” Liquid said in a statement Wednesday.
“In connection with this acquisition, FTX has also entered into an agreement with Liquid to provide its existing Japanese users with services in compliance with Japanese laws, and will transfer its existing Japanese users to Quoine.”
FTX, which raised $400 million at a $32 billion value earlier this week, is rapidly expanding in the Asian crypto industry at a time when competition is heating up.
According to Bankman-Fried, securing licenses in numerous countries is a major focus for the company.
Traditional lenders such as Japan’s SBI and Singapore’s DBS have been making efforts in the area in order to profit from cryptocurrency’s meteoric rise. SBI owns a small stake in a number of crypto start-ups, including Ripple, a $15 billion corporation, while DBS has its own digital asset market.
According to CoinMarketCap data, Liquid, which was founded in 2014, is one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges by volume, with about $72 million in daily trading volumes. It provides both spot and financial derivatives trading in digital currencies such as bitcoin, ether, and XRP, allowing investors to bet on price swings.
Last year, the corporation was hacked, and thieves made off with more than $90 million in money. FTX lent Liquid $120 million in debt financing not long after the incident. The money would be used to “strengthen Liquid’s capital position,” and the two companies would investigate “additional cooperation prospects,” according to Liquid at the time.
Bahamas-based With the exception of the United States, where its services are supplied by an affiliate called FTX U.S., FTX offers crypto spot trading and derivatives products in a number of countries around the world.
FTX U.S. said last week that it had received $400 million in its first external funding round, valued at $8 billion.
