Decentraland Founders Are Creditors of Bankrupt Genesis
Three Decentraland executives, including two co-founders and the platform’s CFO, are named among the top creditors of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global.
Decentraland co-founders Esteban Ordano and Ari Meilich and the platform’s CFO Santiago Esponda are listed among the 50 largest non-insider unsecured claims against Genesis, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US on Thursday.
The crypto lender revealed the names of its largest creditors on the same day that it filed for bankruptcy, which included crypto exchange Gemini, trading giant Cumberland, Mirana, MoonAlpha Finance, and VanEck’s New Finance Income Fund.
A company called Heliva International Corp also appeared on the list with a $55 million claim. The firm listed Decentraland’s CFO Santiago Esponda as a contact point
Aside from Esponda, a closer look at the document reveals that Decentraland’s two co-founders are also listed with non-Decentraland email addresses.
Ordano, who is currently an advisor at Decentraland, is listed as the contact for another company called Winah Securities, to which Genisis owes around $27 million. Notably, the document shows that Winah is located on the same floor in the same building as Heliva.
And finally, Genesis owes $20 million to Meilich’s gaming company Big Time Studios. According to his LinkedIn profile, Ari Meilich was a co-founder of Decentraland and worked there until April 2020 as project lead when he left the platform to establish his own company Big Time Studios. He also remains a Decentraland adviser.
Genesis eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday after weeks of speculation about the crypto lender’s financial health. Genesis Global Holdco LLC, plus subsidiaries Genesis Global Capital LLC and Genesis Asia Pacific Pte, were included in the bankruptcy filing.
In the filing, Genesis estimated more than 100,000 creditors and between $1 billion and $10 billion in liabilities, as well as assets. The two other entities, Genesis Global Capital LLC and Genesis Asia Pacific Pte, estimated their assets and liabilities in the $100 million and $500 million range, respectively.
According to a Bloomberg report, Genesis aims to use the Chapter 11 process to raise funds or sell assets. If these efforts turn out to be unfruitful, creditors will end up owning the reorganized business. The company also has $150 million of cash on hand that would be used to fund the bankruptcy process.
As a reminder, Genesis announced that it was suspending redemptions and new loan originations in mid-November last year following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, saying that the “abnormal withdrawal requests” exceeded its “current liquidity.”
Meanwhile, Genesis has been in the middle of a public dispute with major crypto exchange Gemini, founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The twins are owed more than $900 million by Genesis. However, the due is not consent with how DCG CEO Barry Silbert has been handling things and even called for his removal as the CEO of Digital Currency Group.
