Singapore-based crypto exchange company Vauld has abruptly suspended withdrawals, trading, and deposits, with immediate effect. Causes involve restructuring with its financial and legal advisors.
1/4 In this thread . These are all messages by #valud @VauldOfficial ceo @darshanbathija in their telegram group. Seems like they are working on a plan . And both orgs are operating with the intent of completing this transaction of acquisition . @nexo #Vauld pic.twitter.com/nNFj2udfVm
— dhruv gupta (@Dhruvforreal) July 7, 2022
In a corporate statement published last week, CEO Darshan Bathija claimed that Vauld is ‘in discussions with potential investors’ to give them breathing room in restructuring the platform.
The statement claims that as a result of the collapse of Terraform Labs’ UST stablecoin, a significant number of customers have withdrawn an excess of $197.7 from Vauld since 12 June 2022. At its peak, Vauld had managing assets of close to $1 billion.
However, Vauld supporters were made anxious upon Telegram messages on July 8th from Bathija stating that Vauld is going through an audit, and “tenure and asset liability positions are yet to to be assessed”.
In response to several depositors via Telegram, Bathija has stated that the market is yet to see through who has indirect exposure to the May 2022 UST crash. Bathija has explicitly mentioned that Vauld does not have direct exposure to Celcius, Voyager, Babel, or 3AC – which have all faced insolvency resulting from the troubled market.
The sad part here is that it's now confirmed that #Vauld does have a hole in the balance sheet as some counterparties who may have been exposed to #3AC or other firms have defaulted on their loans.
Vauld may not have direct exposure, but indirectly they have been effected pic.twitter.com/9UoonSU7Wz
— Saleem Lala (@saleemlala) July 7, 2022
Rumours have been circulating that Vauld customers are expected to lose parts of their assets deposited into the platform. However, London-based crypto lender Nexo has started processes to potentially acquire up to 100% of Vauld.
Nexo’s interest in Vauld lies in Vauld’s “huge traction” in India and Southeast Asia – where Nexo has expressed interest in tapping into the respective regions’ markets.
I understand that a lot of our customers are nervous about your funds. We are working tirelessly to ensure your financials are protected. To that end, we've signed an indicative term sheet with @Nexo to acquire up to 100% of Vauld: https://t.co/HrnQO7J64f
— Darshan Bathija (@darshanbathija) July 5, 2022
“The Nexo team is in a strong financial and liquidity position, bootstrapped and having never raised external capital with a solid equity cushion, which is also visible in our real-time reserves audit available here,” stated Kiril Nikolov, DeFi strategist at Nexo.
Vauld is not the only struggling crypto lender that Nexo has entered talks with. In June, Nexo approached crypto lender Celcius’ assets – however Celcius declined.
