Crypto Lender BlockFi Attracts Bid from Curve Amid Crypto Slump: Details

Curve, a payments company, is looking to purchase over than 87,000 credit card customers, whose credit cards have been suspended this November, from BlockFi crypto lender. Deserve, a Banking as a Service (BaaS) company, has been roped-in to process the outreach and negotiations on this deal. Deserve is also responsible for servicing the BlockFi card programme that was launched in July 2021. Curve's offer to purchase this detail from BlockFi comes at a time when the crypto industry is undergoing a slump owing to the dramatic downfall of the FTX crypto exchange.

“Terms are being negotiated actively between Curve and Deserve, but a sale or partnership, if agreed to, is pending the conclusion of due diligence,” a CoinTelegraph report quoted a Curve spokesperson as saying.

As part of its initiative to drive crypto adoption, BlockFi credit cards allow its holders to earn 1.5 percent back in Bitcoin on every purchase made using the card.

The company, however, decided to suspend withdrawals for users citing the ongoing FTX ordeal. BlockFi and FTX US had announced this July that the companies had agreed to a deal wherein FTX US would provide BlockFi credit facility worth millions, which would also give FTX the right to acquire BlockFi.

Following the decision, several users of the BlockFi cards complained on Twitter about their cards not working that prompted Curve to put in a bid.

If Curve's acquisition deal comes through, it will still continue to allow users to earn crypto awards.

The company has also said that the users will not be ported to yet another centrally held exchange.

As per reports, Binance US and Coinbase were also trying to get BlockFi's credit card.

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