Under-pressure cryptocurrency trading platform BitPrime is in negotiation with three possible backers to secure the company's financial future.
Photo: 123RF
The business was forced to pause trading on its platform last month, blaming what it described as a "perfect storm" of a decline in business, rising costs, and a volatile crypto market.
Chief executive Ross Carter-Brown told RNZ it had secured bridging finance to see it through another month and half of its operations were back up and running.
He said he had been in talks three different parties about a recapitalisation plan.
"We effectively have one offer on the table already, but we are wanting to progress those other two options further just to ensure we can get the best deal we can."
Carter-Brown was unable to name the entities but said they included Singaporean based virtual asset firm, a local financial service provider and a venture capital firm based in Abu Dhabi.
"Those deals range from a merger, acquisition and buying a majority shareholding."
His preference was for the company to bring in a new investor, so it could resume normal trading and pursue its Series A capital raise later this year.
However, he said how the company operates in the future would depend on who its new backer would be.
Carter-Brown said he was confident he would have a deal by the end of next week.
If the company did not settle on a deal it would have to "get the hatchet out" and make some hard decisions once its bridging finance had run out, he said.
He said the response to company's "BitPrime Supporter Initiative", which allowed the public to support the business, had been lower than expected but it had started a number of conservations with well-financed backers.
Over the counter service up and running
BitPrime had resumed trading on its over the counter (OTC) service which is aimed at high-net worth individual investors and professional traders, but its retail platform remained on pause.
The OTC platform typically accepted deposits of between $50,000 and $150,000 but was accepting trades from retail investors at lower caps.
OTC transactions allow an investor to make use of a professional trading broker to make big and swift purchases of crypto assets.
"The pros are the margins are much slimmer, so it's cheaper, but there's a small range of trading pairs available."
He said the negotiation with different backers had delayed the resumption of trading on its retail platform, which allowed investors buy up to a hundred different cryptocurrencies, because some of those entities were already established players in the retail space.