The crypto contagion continues to spread. After the crypto lending sector leader, Celsius, now, the dominant global investment firm, SkyBridge Capital has also suspended client withdrawals from one of its funds.
According to Bloomberg’s latest report, Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital halted redemptions from one of its funds — Legion Strategies fund. The company temporarily suspended client redemptions, claiming that it is due to a consistent decline in the value of stocks and cryptocurrencies.
Following this, it was reported that the Legion Strategies fund’s 20% holdings are in privately held companies, which are reportedly harder to sell given the current market scenario. Additionally, the crypto exchange giant, FTX is amongst the fund’s holdings along with exposure cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ether, and algorand through other funds managed by Skybridge.
Earlier this month, Anthony Scaramucci also made comments on FTX CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried’s move to loan out $250 million to bail out struggling crypto lending platform BlockFi. Scaramucci noted that this move could potentially be indicative of the bear market’s bottom.
In an interview with CNBC, SkyBridge Capital’s CEO said that BlockFi’s decision to take a deal from Sam Bankman-Fried “may not have protected the equity there, but it’s certainly protecting the depositors and I think in Sam’s case, he’s looking for customer acquisition, and I think he sees this as a broad opportunity to get those customers through BlockFi”. He added that “Sam stepping in here is, I think, providing the context for a bottom.”
Peter Schiff On SkyBridge’s Withdrawal Suspension
As the Skybridge withdrawal suspension news broke, the gold proponent and crypto critic, Peter Schiff took to Twitter with an “I told you so” remark. Schiff claimed that he pointed out in real-time and alerted Scaramucci himself that Skybridge Capital’s entrance into Bitcoin would mark the peak of the crypto market. In light of this, Schiff said that “a lot of big players were able to cash out thanks to all the money Skybridge put into crypto and crypto-related equities”.