Mark Lamb: 'We Don't Know' if Roger Ver Will Repay Debt

The embattled CoinFLEX exchange missed a self-imposed deadline on Thursday for reenabling user withdrawals, one day after CEO Mark Lamb expressed uncertainty about the company’s future

“We continue to talk with investors interested in rvUSD and commitments are growing,” the company said in a Thursday blog post. “Once the token sale is fully committed, we will be able to communicate a clear path towards enabling withdrawals, but until then they will remain suspended.

“The goal is to do everything possible to avoid haircuts to customer funds,” the company added. “We remain confident in our ability to bring this to resolution.”

The exchange announced on June 23 that it was freezing user withdrawals “due to extreme market conditions” that resulted in “uncertainty involving a counterparty.” Lamb revealed on Twitter this week the counterparty was Roger Ver, who he said defaulted on a $47 million loan.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen after if he doesn’t repay or if he does repay,” Lamb said in a Wednesday interview with CNBC. “Our focus right now is on … getting … these funds raised.” CoinFLEX has been trying to sell Ver’s debt in the form of a new cryptocurrency, rvUSD, enticing purchasers with 20 percent in annual interest that they hope to pay for using a “financing charge” imposed on Ver.

“The good news is that the number of players that have reached out that are interested in this debt offering and this token offering are extremely well capitalized,” Lamb said. “We’re talking about tens of millions. It’s coming from a mixture of distressed debt funds, existing users of the platform, and investors in CoinFLEX.”

It is not clear whether Ver will be able to meet his obligations to the company, potentially fueling some reticence among potential investors in the debt-financed token. Ver mostly went dark on social media after a Tuesday afternoon tweet in which he denied “rumors” about his obligations to CoinFLEX, writing, “Not only do I not have a debt to this counter-party, but this counter- party owes me a substantial sum of money, and I am currently seeking the return of my funds.”

The comment provoked a caustic response from Lamb, who wrote that it was “unfortunate that Roger Ver needs to resort to such tactics in order to deflect from his liabilities and responsibilities.”

That exchange came just hours after the CoinFLEX chief referred to Ver as “a high-integrity person of significant means” in a post on his company’s website. Lamb told CNBC on Wednesday that he was still hoping to “resolve this amicably,” but that the company was exploring legal options if Ver failed to repay his debt, saying it had “an obligation to go through the appropriate legal channels.”

Ver remained silent on Lamb’s comments as of Thursday, but did take to Twitter to weigh in on the unrelated news that the Securities and Exchange Commission had denied an application for an exchange-traded bitcoin fund, writing that investors “would be protected better if the SEC was replaced with private rating agencies.”