Blockchain startup Lygon – backed by International Business Machines and other prominent supporters, including major financial institutions – has gone bankrupt.
According to news platform news.com.au, the Australian-based company’s debt hovers around $14.3 million.
According to a regulatory report filed with the corporate regulator in late 2023, Lygon went bankrupt just five years after its launch.
Headquartered in Sydney, Lygon has subsidiaries in New Zealand and Singapore. The company also attracted the attention of the banking community.
Founded as a joint venture by ANZ, CBA, Westpac, IBM and Scentre Group, the company aimed to revolutionize the digitalisation of bank guarantees through blockchain technology.
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Focused on streamlining the process, Lygon sought to eliminate the cumbersome practice of sending paper documents for bank guarantees, ultimately saving time and money.
The success story received widespread media attention, including reports in The Australian Financial Review and several trade publications, highlighting the $12.75 million raised in a crowdfunding campaign.
However, a little over a year later, the story took a turn for the worse. In June 2023, Lygon appointed administrators, who were ultimately liquidated a few months later.
Amid this unfortunate turn of events, an employee, who not only personally invested but also influenced his family to invest, lamented the financial losses.
In addition, Russell, a person who spoke to news.com.au on condition of anonymity, made it clear that staff are owed a significant amount of money. He described the situation as a sad state of affairs.
Lygon’s intellectual property
In October 2023, Lygon’s intellectual property (IP) was sold to a consortium involving an investment fund and former senior executives, as stated by the appointed liquidator, Trent Hancock of the Hamilton Murphy bankruptcy.
Initially valued at $5.1 million, the company’s technology sold for just $500,000, representing a tenth of its initial valuation, and was purchased by some of Lygon’s previous leadership teams.
As part of the sale, Lygon had to change its company name to its Australian company number.
Russell expressed disappointment with the sale, noting that it significantly diluted the investments of those involved. He also expressed surprise at the legal aspects of the situation, highlighting that the same leadership team bought back the assets at a fraction of the original cost.
Russell revealed that members of his family invested almost $500,000 in Lygon, although he acknowledged this amount as “a drop in the bucket” compared to the losses suffered by other shareholders.
He claimed that Lygon had organized a fundraiser for friends and family, collecting almost $5 million from staff and their associates, all of which has now been lost.
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Crypto chaos
Blockchain liquidation and collapse are recurring issues in the cryptocurrency industry, impacting investors, creditors and the broader market.
Last June, Celsius Network, a cryptocurrency lending platform that also promoted itself as a safer alternative to banks, faced several challenges, including a liquidity crisis and allegations of market manipulation against its co-founder, Alex Mashinsky.
Mashinsky was arrested and charged with securities fraud, commodities fraud and conspiracy to manipulate the price of the Celsius token; CELL.
After a lengthy bankruptcy process, Celsius Network ended its bankruptcy case on November 9, 2023 with a plan to form a new company, NewCo, which will repay customers and creditors.
The plan, approved by a New York bankruptcy court, involved using a mining company to repay creditors.
NewCo, the newly created company, would receive financial support from two sources: $450 million in cryptocurrency owned by Celsius and a $50 million investment from Fahrenheit, an investment group that acquired the rights to oversee the mining and staking activities from NewCo.
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