On November 8, Flori Marquez, BlockFi’s Co-Founder and COO, stated that the crypto lender is not affected by the Binance-FTX takeover deal. She emphasized that BlockFi owes $400MM to FTX US and not FTX International, and expected BlockFi to remain independent until July 2023.
Less than a week after she made these claims, BlockFi imposed restrictions on user activities.
BlockFi’s decision to halt services came right after FTX US asked users to liquidate all open positions as the exchange may pause trading facilities in a few days.
The crypto lender's leadership page was also taken down. The 'Teams' webpage that earlier displayed the names and designations of BlockFi’s high-ranking officials has now turned blank.
Data from Web Archive indicates that this change was implemented just a few hours ago.
Interestingly, FTX US’ announcement about potentially suspending trading is contradictory to Sam Bankman-Fried’s statements. In his public apology, the CEO of FTX claimed that FTX US was 100% liquid, with the current crisis only concerning FTX International.