CrossTower eyeing further crypto acquisitions outside of Voyager bid

CrossTower’s president said they would place extra emphasis on highly transparent and compliance-focused companies in light of the FTX collapse.

Crypto exchange CrossTower Inc., which is currently bidding for the assets of Voyager Digital, is reportedly window shopping for other crypto company acquisitions. 

In a Nov. 24 Bloomberg report, CrossTower CEO Kapil Rathi revealed that the company is looking to pick up firms with a “good set of customers” and a “good balance sheet” despite the current bear market, stating:

“We’re in a great place to either acquire entities who have a good set of customers with them and a good balance sheet [...] so we are openly looking at different types of companies from an organic growth perspective.”

In September, CrossTower was one of the companies reported to be competing to acquire the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital, along with FTX and Binance.

FTX Trading eventually became the winner of the Voyager bid on Sept. 27 with the sale valued at $1.4 billion.

However, with the exchange filing for bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11, Voyager reopened the bidding process and a new revised offer came from CrossTower on the same day.

“We are working on a revised offer that we feel will benefit the Voyager customers and the wider Crypto community. CrossTower has always been, and will continue to be, very community-focussed,” a spokesperson told Cointelegraph at the time, without specifying an amount.

While CrossTower has still yet to disclose any details on its latest bid for Voyager, CrossTower president Kristin Boggiano stated that Voyager’s small $3 million FTX investment wouldn’t play a factor in a potential sale for the lending platform.

CrossTower also stated that it has “minimal exposure” to FTX-related investments.

Other companies back in line to buy out Voyager’s assets include Binance and blockchain-focused venture capital firm Wave Financial, who had also expressed interest in the initial auction for Voyager’s assets in September.

Related: Voyager's auction did not serve depositors' best interests, alleges Wave Financial rep

In light of recent events with FTX, Boggiano stated that the firm has now placed an extra emphasis on companies that are highly transparent and compliance-focused:

“There’s an opportunity in this market to provide a compliance focused platform and to bring the transparency and trust that people have been hoping for.”

However, Rathi said the trading platform’s risk appetite to buy out companies has leveled off with the firm looking to adopt a slightly more cautious approach over the short to mid-term.

CrossTower is a United States crypto asset exchange that was founded in 2019. It’s a relatively small exchange with only $103,816 in trading volume over the last 24 hours with 13 spot markets, according to CoinMarketCap.