FTX has announced the purchase of Japanese crypto exchange operator Liquid for an undisclosed sum.
FTX Acquires Liquid
FTX is acquiring Japanese crypto exchange operator Liquid.com, and its subsidiaries—Quoine Corporation and Quoine Pte.—located across Japan and Singapore. The acquisition news comes less than 48 hours after FTX raised $400 million at a $32 billion valuation in its Series C funding round.
In a Wednesday blog post, Liquid said the deal with FTX is set to conclude by the end of March 2022, but did not disclose how much FTX paid for the acquisition. Headquartered in the Bahamas and led by founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX is one of the leading centralized crypto exchanges with daily trading volume upwards of $10 billion across spot and derivatives markets, per CoinGecko.
Liquid detailed that following the acquisition, Quoine will gradually integrate FTX products into its offerings, and thereafter serve all of FTX’s Japanese clients. FTX has agreed to transfer its existing Japanese exchange users to Quoine starting Mar. 30, 2022.
Quoine was one of the first exchanges to register under the Financial Services Agency—the primary financial regulator in Japan. In October 2021, Quonine was granted Type I Financial Instruments Business license under Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, allowing it to offer crypto derivatives trading.
FTX and Liquid have engaged with one other in the past. In August 2021, when Liquid was hacked for more than $90 million, FTX came to its rescue and provided $120 million in debt financing to help cover its losses and compensate users.