This is a segment from the Lightspeed newsletter. To read full editions, subscribe.
Backpack, a crypto wallet and exchange popular among Solana users, has acquired FTX EU for $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. On top of that, it inherits FTX EU’s European regulatory license that will let European users trade perpetual futures, which are very popular among crypto traders.
Ferrante said the deal was signed back in April of 2024, and Backpack spent the next eight months going through due diligence with regulators. In buying FTX EU, Backpack now becomes responsible for distributing bankruptcy claims to the exchange’s former customers.
Ferrante formerly worked at Alameda Research, the research and trading firm that totally wasn’t commingling bank accounts with FTX. Backpack Wallet co-founder Tristan Yver, who just stepped back from an operational role at the company, was the head of strategy at FTX US.
FTX is tied to Solana because it built its Serum DEX on the network in 2020 and is widely credited with helping put the network on crypto investors’ radars in Solana’s early days.
Backpack has never been shy about the connection to FTX, and it’s pitching this acquisition partly as a way to get customers their funds back. “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.
Outside of those connections, this deal feels a bit surprising at first glance, because FTX obviously doesn’t have any staff or proprietary technology that Backpack can access. Backpack also now has to distribute bankruptcy claims, which it didn’t have to do before.
Perhaps the most lucrative part of the deal is FTX’s MiFID II license that lets Backpack offer trading services including perps in Europe. 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.
Europe is a big trading market, and a large chunk of crypto trading volume comes in the form of perps, Ferrante said in an email. “Yet there are no compliant crypto perpetual futures offerings on the market right now in Europe.”
A Coinbase spokesperson said the exchange bought an EU MiFID II entity last year, and it plans to “expand our derivatives offering from the EU in due course.”
Crypto derivatives were also relevant to the only other FTX post-collapse acquisition: It sold the LedgerX derivatives platform to a Miami-based holding company for $50 million in 2023.
Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.
Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.
Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.
The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.
