FTX Ventures To Acquire A 30% Stake In Investment Firm Skybridge Capital

FTX Ventures, the venture arm of crypto exchange backed by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried FTX, has set its eyes on Skybridge Capital as it aims to acquire a 30% stake in the alternative investment firm.

Part of the proceeds from the deal will be utilized by Skybridge Capital to deploy $40 million in long-term crypto investments to hold on its balance sheet, CNBC reported.

"I don't think that Sam Bankman-Fried's recent movement is an altruistic gesture," Richard Gardner, chief executive officer of Modulus Global, a software provider to big-ticket Wall Street clients, told Reuters. "Some investors may see this as a turnaround for the industry, but I think it is more of a life jacket than a lifeboat."

Skybridge Capital is backed by Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House director of communications during the administration of Donald Trump and made a bold prediction about the price of Bitcoin (BTC) at the start of the year.

Scaramucci noted on Twitter in March that Bitcoin would reach the $21,000 and $23,000 price levels this year but was overall bullish on the world's biggest cryptocurrency. He also wrote that the bull cycle could only be confirmed if BTC would break the $45,000-$46,000 price level and the $51,000-$52,000 price level.

In an interview with CNBC in August, Scaramucci said, "In the next six years, if we are right, if bitcoin goes to $300,000 a coin, it will not matter whether you bought it at $20,000 or $60,000."

Scaramucci is also bullish on Bitcoin's layer 2 payment protocol, the Lightning Network, which he believes will increase the applications of the Bitcoin Network and ease of transactions on bitcoin as well.

As of 12:22 a.m. ET on Monday, BTC was trading up0.34% at $21,668, based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.