The crypto asset manager Ikigai has admitted that it held “a large majority” of its assets on the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, saying it “got very little out” before the collapse. But the company is far from only one with exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried’s once-mighty empire.
“Unfortunately, I have some pretty bad news to share,” Travis Kling, head of the crypto-focused fund opened a recent Twitter thread by telling his followers. He went on to say that Ikigai got “caught up in the FTX collapse,” and that “a large majority of the hedge fund’s total assets” were on the exchange.
“By the time we went to withdraw Monday [morning], we got very little out. We’re now stuck alongside everyone else,” Kling, a former portfolio manager from the traditional finance world, said.
In the 10-tweet thread, Kling further explained that his team has been in “constant communication” with investors since Monday last week, while also taking full responsibility for the tragic outcome.
“It was entirely my fault and not anyone else’s. I lost my investors’ money after they put faith in me to manage risk and I am truly sorry for that. I have publicly endorsed FTX many times and I am truly sorry for that. I was wrong,” Kling wrote.
Finally, Kling described what, in his view, has gone so horribly wrong in the crypto industry:
“If crypto is to recover and continue on its journey to make the world a better place, I believe the entire concept of trust has to be completely rearchitected. Bitcoin is trustless. Then we built all these trusted things around it, and those things have failed catastrophically.”
Responding to the Twitter thread, several leading members of the Bitcoin and crypto community came out in support of Kling and his fund:
Although Ikigai may
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