Highly Criticized ‘GTX’ Startup Officially Announced as ‘Open Exchange’

Disgraced crypto VC Zhu Su has officially announced his next project: “Open Exchange” – a crypto marketplace for claims and derivatives trading. 

The company is intended to help investors who lost money in 2022’s wave of industry bankruptcies – though crypto Twitter isn’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea.

Rebuilding Crypto

Per a Twitter thread from Su on Thursday, the exchange is being built using “all the pain/lessons” learned from the team’s experience last year. Su’s venture capital giant launched alongside Kyle Davies, Three Arrows Capital (3AC), collapsed in June due to overexposure to the defunct cryptocurrency Terra (LUNA). 

1/ june/july was total darkness for me, kyle & our creditors after our bet on accelerating crypto adoption proved fatally wrong

we were crushed by the collapse of the market & the way our misplaced conviction had contributed to the pain https://t.co/eO5jLjrLU7

— Zhu Su 朱溯 (@zhusu) February 9, 2023

The company was formed in partnership with CoinFlex CEO Mark Lamb, whose exchange also went bankrupt after losing money on a loan issued to Roger Ver. Open Exchange will use CoinFlex’s existing token, FLEX, as its own primary token. 

The product is meant to combine the user interface of Cefi exchanges with the trustlessness of DeFi exchanges. It will also provide a marketplace for trapped claims within 3AC, Voyager, FTX, Celsius, and others to find a public marketplace and allow users to rebuild. 

“We spoke to creditors about several plans. Everyone we talked with thought this one was the wisest way to use our existing resources,” said the founder. 

Speculation about the new exchange began to spread last month while it was still under the tentative name ‘GTX.’ At the time, CoinFLEX said its creditors would be the largest shareholders of the final product. 

A Second Chance?

Many are pessimistic about the idea of a new crypto startup spearheaded by executives who already failed once. Popular on-chain sleuth ZachXBT, replied to Su’s announcement with “I hope the rest of 2023 is worse for you.”

BlockTower founder Ari Paul added that the exchange most likely won’t work, and will be misunderstood by users since bankruptcy claims are non-fungible and therefore not easily traded.

so instead of getting my money back I can gamble my claims away on a new exchange built by the people who owe said claims to me? pic.twitter.com/4MS1fB1aDv

— nassim (@smoltaleb) February 9, 2023

The founder, on the other hand, views his mistakes as valuable experience:

“I believe those who fail often learn the most about risk & hubris. while those who haven’t experienced it are often destined to learn it later,” he wrote. “Those that do have a responsibility not to quit, but instead to take the pain & build anew, never compromising on what they learned”