Bitfinex plans to compensate customers with equity
Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex is now seeking to compensate its users that experienced losses in the recent attack on its platform by offering them equity in the company. This follows the loss 120,000 bitcoins, which represented 36% of the funds held by the exchange at the time.
The two companies will cooperate to facilitate the exchange of customer losses into equity

BnkToTheFuture, the online investment platform for financial innovation and technology investment opportunities, has signed a letter of intent with Bitfinex, the bitcoin exchange from which 119,756 bitcoins were recently stolen, to provide solutions to compensate customers with equity after Bitfinex announced a loss of 36% on funds held with the exchange. The loss is the direct result of the theft which has received global media attention.

To account for the loss while executing its recovery plan, Bitfinex created a new token – BFX, with a face value of US$1 and issued these tokens to customers in proportion to the losses suffered by the theft. Bitfinex and BnkToTheFuture will be structuring a deal to allow qualifying customers to exchange their BFX tokens for equity in iFinex Inc. via a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) with full details to be released in a future announcement.

BnkToTheFuture has hosted funding rounds resulting in over $70m worth of investments from qualified investors over the past year including investments in BitPesa, Uphold, ShapeShift and many others. They now host the largest global community of qualified investors investing online in FinTech, Bitcoin, Blockchain and Technology companies.

Simon Dixon, CEO and co-founder of BnkToTheFuture, believes that when clients’ funds are stolen from an exchange that is the size of BitFinex, we need to (where possible) focus on finding good market solutions that can potentially compensate investors faster than traditional proceedings. Simon believes that today we may be able to use new Blockchain assets and financial innovation to produce better and faster solutions for victims.

BnkToTheFuture and BitFinex have begun work that will allow users to redeem their BFX tokens through the BnkToTheFuture platform in order to facilitate compliant exchanges for equity by qualified investors. Furthermore, they will be discussing a suite of options with the goal of further minimising the loss for the hack victims.

BitFinex CEO, Jean Louis van der Velde, stated:

“Our commitment was to get the exchange back online securely so customers know where they stand and to issue all users their BFX tokens. This is now complete and we have enabled trading of BFX tokens. We are committed to releasing updates and reports detailing the events of the hack and a financial update for customers and qualifying investors before we begin any equity conversion and have engaged third parties to complete this process.”

Simon Dixon, CEO and co-founder of BnkToTheFuture, said:

“BFX was an innovative approach towards making users whole and we are working with Bitfinex on several possibilities to accomplish their goals.”

Simon added: “The Bitcoin community has come very far and endured a lot over the past 8 years. This hack is the latest saga in Bitcoin’s history. It’s important to remember that Bitcoin itself is working perfectly and is unaffected. Now we are committed to finding market solutions in times of crisis. As a community we need to learn from this experience and develop our own solutions, we are exploring such options with Bitfinex. Bitfinex has shown a commitment to do all they can to help and support their customers as much as possible in a situation that has no perfect solution.”