Paolo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer at Bitfinex, just announced that the new iFinex Inc. subsidiary, Unus Sed Leo, was able to raise $1 billion in a private sale of its initial exchange offering (IEO), referred to as LEO tokens.
In only ten days, the firm was able to sell out the 1 billion LEO tokens it made available for purchase. The sale ended on Saturday, May 11, and did not even make it to the public since private investors were able to reach the investment goal.
Mr. Ardoino explained in a tweet the massive support industry leaders gave to the IEO.
“Private companies, giants in our industry and outside, made investments of over $100 million each. A legion of inside and outside users made investments for over $1 million each.”
The Bitfinex CTO believes that the company’s reputation remains intact among institutional investors who were able to recognize its trustworthiness and hunger to prevail as one of the industry leaders.
Why? Because they know we are trustworthy, they recognize what we have been doing (without needing us bragging about it publicly) and they want us keep fighting for the industry whole. Their own words.
Thank you everyone for the amazing support we got. We are impressed. $LEO— Paolo Ardoino (@paoloardoino) May 13, 2019
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Zhao Dong, one of China’s biggest over-the-counter traders, published a marketing document detailing iFinex Inc.’s plans to conduct the initial exchange offering on May 4. Bitfinex’s management did not make the official announcement until six days later when it released the LEO token whitepaper.
The private sales come at a time when the company has been involved in a probe, led by the Attorney General of the State of New York, for allegedly engaging in a cover-up to conceal the apparent loss of almost $850 million of co-mingled client and corporate funds.
Just last week, the US Department of Justice seized an HSBC bank account that was directly connected to Bitfinex. The account was allegedly used to commit bank fraud by secretly transferring US dollars to and from customers of cryptocurrency exchanges.
The recent news have created a massive exodus of traders out of Bitfinex. Approximately $400 million have been moved out of the exchange’s cold wallets, mainly in bitcoin and ether.
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Source: cryptoinsider.com