Backpack, a popular crypto wallet and trading platform among Solana’s users, acquired FTX EU at a price of $32.7 million.
In buying the defunct exchange’s European arm, Backpack — which was started by FTX and Alameda alumni — gets access to more than 110,000 former FTX EU users, Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante told me. Backpack also inherits FTX EU’s European regulatory licence, which will allow European users to trade perpetual futures. These are popular with crypto traders.
Ferrante confirmed that the contract was signed in April, 2024. Backpack spent an additional eight months doing due diligence and coordinating with the regulators. Backpack is now responsible for distributing claims from bankruptcy to former customers of FTX.
Ferrante was previously employed by Alameda Research. It is a research and trade firm which did not mix its bank accounts with FTX. Tristan Yver is the co-founder of Backpack Wallet, and was previously the Head of Strategy at FTX US.
FTX has a connection to Solana, as it created its Serum DEX in 2020 on the network. It is credited for helping the network get on investors’ radars during the early stages of Solana.
Backpack is not shy to talk about its connection with FTX. It’s also promoting this purchase as a means to refund customers. “FTX EU users have been waiting for their distribution for too long. We believed that we could do it faster and more efficiently,” Ferrante said.
This deal is a little surprising, if you look beyond those connections. FTX has no staff and Backpack cannot access any proprietary technology. Backpack must now distribute bankruptcy claims. This was not the case before.
Backpack’s ability to provide trading services, including for perps, in Europe is perhaps the most valuable part of the deal. Convincing regulators to reactivate the FTX license — which was suspended after the exchange’s collapse — was part of what took the deal so long to be finalized, Ferrante told me.
Ferrante, in an email, said that Europe was a huge trading market. A large portion of the crypto-trading volume is made up of Perps. “Yet there are no compliant crypto perpetual futures offerings on the market right now in Europe.”
Coinbase’s spokesperson confirmed that the exchange purchased an EU MiFID II entity in 2013 and plans to continue doing so. “expand our derivatives offering from the EU in due course.”
The crypto derivatives also played a role in the other FTX acquisition after the collapse: it sold LedgerX, FTX’s derivatives platform, to a Miami holding company at $50 million by 2023.
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