Pantera, ParaFi and others buy FTX Metaplex tokens

Several crypto funds, including Pantera Capital, ParaFi Capital and others, have recently bought a significant number of Metaplex (MPLX) tokens from Wave Digital Assets which were originally held by the FTX estate, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told me and the funds involved confirmed.

The FTX estate originally held 72.6 million MPLX tokens, the source said, citing bankruptcy filings. Of those, 62.6 million were sold privately over the past five months, representing the entire block of unlocked MPLX held by the FTX estate at the time, the source added, citing on-chain data . Additionally, 2.5 million tokens were moved from the FTX wallet last month. Only 7.5 million tokens remain to be sold, all of which will be fully unlocked on September 19, they noted.

Metaplex is a Solana SOL +0.94% -based protocol that supports the creation of digital assets, including fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Since launching in 2021, Metaplex claims its platform has facilitated the minting of over 550 million assets across 55 million unique wallets.

"Metaplex standards are used by leading projects like Helium, Tiplink, Driphaus, Pump.fun and Dialect, covering use cases from DePINs to payments, messaging, and the creator economy," James Ho, co-founder and managing partner at Modular Capital, told me. "In 2024 so far, Metaplex has generated 70,000 SOL worth of fees, translating to around $13-14 million annualized. We believe Metaplex has a bright future with its full suite of infrastructure standards serving creators and token issuers," Ho added.

Modular Capital, one of the funds purchasing MPLX from Wave Digital, bought around 700,000 tokens at an average price of $0.21 in April — roughly a 25-30% discount at the time, Ho said. MPLX is currently priced at $0.25, with a fully diluted valuation of around $245 million, according to CoinGecko.

MPLX trades at a 'depressed multiple'

"MPLX continues to fly under the radar and trades at a depressed multiple," Ryan Watkins, co-founder of Syncracy Capital, told me. "We believe Metaplex is critical infrastructure for the Solana digital asset economy and it will eventually become one of the most valuable projects on Solana." Watkins confirmed that Syncracy bought $1.4 million worth of MPLX at $0.20 in April, a roughly 40% discount at the time.

In addition to Modular and Syncracy, Pantera, ParaFi and Theia Blockchain have also bought MPLX from Wave Digital. Felipe Montealegre, co-founder of Theia, confirmed the purchase but declined to provide specific details. Pantera Capital and ParaFi Capital, on the other hand, co-led the MPLX purchase, the source said. The Block reached out to Wave Digital for comment but didn't immediately receive a response.

"We are holders of MPLX tokens," Cosmo Jiang, portfolio manager at Pantera Capital, told me. Metaplex fits within Pantera's long-term investment strategy, which focuses on high-quality protocols with product-market fit and value accrual potential, he added.

Josh Solesbury, an investor at ParaFi Capital, confirmed their MPLX investment and said that ParaFi acquired the tokens from a third party selling their FTX estate purchase, without naming Wave Digital.

Stephen Hess, director at the Metaplex Foundation, declined to comment on the specifics of this article, but said, "The Metaplex ecosystem stands to benefit greatly by the addition of this new group of strategic token holders who can support the protocol as it enters its next phase of growth."

MPLX is merely the latest FTX estate asset to draw VC capital: The FTX estate's sale of its $7.5 billion stash of discounted Solana tokens earlier this year also attracted interest from VC firms, including Pantera Capital, which bought batches of SOL tokens in April and May after reportedly aiming to raise $250 million for that purpose in March.

The FTX estate appears to have sold most of its tokens and now has over $376 million in remaining assets, according to Arkham data , though it's unclear how much the estate could actually profit from selling certain illiquid or defunct tokens, like its stash of FTT tokens purportedly worth nearly $325 million at current prices.

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