The crypto world continued to process the effects of the FTX meltdown Thursday. Here are the highlights, and the latest on its impact on Canada’s crypto industry:

• FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted to say he’s “sorry,” “should have done better,” is winding down FTX’s sister trading firm, Alameda, and is still in talks with “a number of players” about a potential acquisition of FTX. He’s reportedly seeking up to US$8 billion in funding to keep the crypto exchange afloat after reportedly using customer assets to fund Alameda’s bets. 

• The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan disclosed that its investments in both FTX and its U.S. entity over two funding rounds in October 2021 and January 2022 totalled US$95 million. Spokesperson Dan Madge confirmed the October investment, part of a US$420 million round alongside Sequoia that valued the exchange at US$25 billion, was US$75 million split between the two entities, while the January investment of US$20 million went solely to FTX.US. The U.S. entity is legally separate from its more troubled international counterpart, but there are many ties between them.

• Prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Sequoia said it is writing down the value of its investment in FTX to $0. It turns out Bankman-Fried had invested more than US$500 million in Sequoia and other VC firms.

• The status of FTX’s planned acquisition of Calgary-based Bitvo, which was supposed to mark the exchanges’ official entry into Canada, remains in question. Bitvo CEO Pamela Draper did not respond to The Logic’s request for comment.

• Vancouver’s LayerZero Labs, a blockchain interoperability protocol that raised US$135 million at a US$1 billion valuation in March, said it has bought FTX, its venture-capital arm and Alameda out of their stakes in the company.

• Shark Tank celebrity investor and noted Canadian Kevin O’Leary became a paid spokesperson for FTX in August 2021. He holds an equity stake in the exchange and agreed to be paid in crypto managed on it. A spokesperson for O’Leary did not immediately respond to The Logic’s request for comment.

Meanwhile, WonderFi sought to reassure investors that its ties with FTX will have little impact. The Vancouver-based company, which owns crypto-trading platforms Bitbuy and Coinberry, issued a statement saying it does not have any exposure to FTX, Alameda or FTX’s exchange token, FTT. It does, however, have some other, complicated links. Buckle up:

• Alameda led WonderFi’s US$5.6 million funding round in August 2021, and WonderFi has promoted Bankman-Fried’s role as a “strategic” investor.

• WonderFi is also an investor in FTX, buying a nearly US$618,000 stake in the company as part of the same US$420 million round in which Ontario Teachers’ participated. 

• Dean Skurka, WonderFi’s interim CEO, told The Logic both investments took place before he joined the company and he was unable to comment on what due diligence WonderFi performed before investing. 

• In its statement, WonderFi said its investment in FTX isn’t large enough to have a material impact. 

• Skurka also said FTX’s stake in WonderFi will not have “much of an impact” on his company’s finances, whatever happens to FTX.

• At the same time it invested in FTX, WonderFi also announced an investment of about US$400,000 in the Incentive Ecosystem Foundation, which in turn invests in the crypto asset Solana. Heavily backed by Alameda, Solana fell almost 49 per cent over a 24-hour period as of Wednesday afternoon. Skurka said Solana has a “growing ecosystem” and he does not believe it will be affected in the long term.

• FTX lists a tokenized version of WonderFi’s stock, allowing investors around the world who don’t have easy access to North American equities to purchase a crypto asset meant to track it. WonderFi is not directly involved in the stock token and its trading volume on FTX is unlikely to be large enough to have an effect on its real-life stock price, Skurka said.

“We’ve seen time and time again that bad actors exist within the cryptocurrency industry,” Skurka said. “We… certainly expect there to be some volatility and a strong lack of confidence in the sector as a whole. But I believe strongly that the market will be able to recover from this.”