Amid an ongoing crypto market downturn, digital asset-focused venture capital firm Digital Currency Group (DCG) has announced it is closing its subsidiary TradeBlock which offers its trading services to institutional investors.
The trading platform is scheduled to be shut down on May 31, Bloomberg reported.
“Due to the state of the broader economy and prolonged crypto winter, along with the challenging regulatory environment for digital assets in the US, we made the decision to sunset the institutional trading platform side of the business,” said a spokesperson for DCG.
CoinDesk Inc., which is also a DCG offshoot, bought TradeBlock in 2020. The crypto media and events offshoot initially folded the purchased indexing business into its own. The remaining operations were subsequently spun out under the brand of TradeBlock. The financial details of the deal were not revealed.
Meanwhile, a number of crypto industry observers are surprised by the venture capital firm’s move as DCG had previously hinted that it was planning to focus on developing its core business.
TradeBlock says on its website that its “API-centric end-to-end platform enables institutions to streamline their crypto asset trading workflows with purpose-built pre-trade, trade execution, post-trade, and reporting solutions.”
Financial woes continue
In the meantime, DCG has been making efforts to sell its bankrupt lending subsidiary Genesis which would allow the business to pay back at least a share of the approximately $3.4 billion it owes its creditors.
In a May 9 statement, DCG said that it “continues to be engaged with the various stakeholders in the Genesis Capital restructuring process pursuant to the 30-day mediation period entered into by all parties on May 1.”
“On a parallel path and to provide further financial flexibility, DCG is in discussions with capital providers for growth capital and to refinance its outstanding intercompany obligations with Genesis,” the business said.
In an earlier statement, released on 20 January 2023, DCG said that it “owes Genesis Capital approximately $526 million due in May 2023 and $1.1 billion under a promissory note due in June 2032. DCG fully intends to address its obligations to Genesis Capital in the course of a restructuring.
DCG failed to repay a $630 million of debt to Genesis’s bankruptcy estate earlier this month, triggering a declaration by Cameron Winklevoss, the CEO of crypto exchange Gemini who is one of the debtors, that he could sue DCG and its CEO Barry Silbert over the repayment of its $900 million loan.
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