iFinex proposes $150M share buyback from Bitfinex hack affected users: Report

Bitfinex’s parent company iFinex has proposed to buy back $150 million worth of the company’s shares from users who were offered these shares as part of compensation for the $71 million hack on the Bitfinex crypto exchange in 2016, reported Bloomberg.

iFinex revealed its plans to buy back $150 million worth of shares in a shareholder letter dated Sept. 22. The digital asset firm offered a price of $10 per share to shareholders for the 15 million shares distributed in the aftermath of the 2016 Bitfinex hack.

Bitfinex lost nearly 36% of the user balance all in Bitcoin, the crypto exchange at the time didn’t have enough cash in hand to compensate users for their losses. Instead, Bitfinex offered recovery-right-tokens (RRT) and equity (iFinex shares) to make the users whole and fill the gap in their balances caused by the hack. Users had the option to choose between these two options.

The iFinex stocks were offered as part of a 2016 stock swap deal in collaboration with investing platform BnkToTheFuture, The deal saw affected users get BFX tokens, which iFinex eventually redeemed for shares of its company via BnkToTheFuture. The $10 offering put iFinex’s valuation at $1.7 billion, significantly higher than its self-valuation of $120 million in 2016.

iFinex said that the buyback program is a reflection of the company’s “positive performance” over the previous few years. Buying back investors’ shares would mean investors could offload a somewhat illiquid investment.

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A handful of directors of iFinex and its affiliates will be qualified to take part in the buyback program. According to the agreement, there is no minimum number of shares required for the buyback to proceed. The parent firm claimed that it is prepared to purchase as many shares as are made available until the maximum amount is reached. Shareholders have till Oct. 24 to decide whether or not they want to sell their ownership to iFinex.

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