Temasek-Backed Crypto Firm Amber Freezes Expansion Plans

Amber Group has raised just half of a planned $100-million funding round and halted expansion plans as the Temasek-backed crypto group feared being drowned by market turmoil sparked by the collapse of FTX, Mercedes Ruehl and Primrose Riordan reported for Financial Times.

Photo Insert: The Amber group, which has also been backed by Sequoia China and Tiger Global Management, lends out tokens and handles customers’ trades on crypto markets.

Crypto traders this week became nervous about Amber’s outlook after industry analysts expressed concerns about how the failure of FTX affected the trading shop.

Singaporeans themselves have criticized Temasek Holdings, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, for losing $275 million in FTX this year and $4.6 billion in placements with the defunct Merrill Lynch at the height of the subprime crisis in 2007 and 2008.

Ho Ching, wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, managed Temasek from 2003 to October 2021. She dismissed those losses as nothing since Temasek can afford to be “contrarian.”

The Amber group, which has also been backed by Sequoia China and Tiger Global Management, lends out tokens and handles customers’ trades on crypto markets.

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