Music fans who bought an NFT at Coachella may be left in the wind after cryptocurrency exchange FTX recently filed for bankruptcy. Festival launched a long-term partnership with FTX in February to offer $1.5 million in NFTs in a new marketplace.
according to painting, a Coachella employee revealed on the festival’s Discord server that he was unable to connect to FTX. “Like many of you, we have been watching this news unfold online for the past few days and the outcome shocked us,” they said. “We currently do not have any lines of communication with the FTX team. We have assembled an in-house team to come up with solutions based on the tools we have access to. Our priority is getting Coachella NFTs out of FTX, which appear to be broken at the moment.”
In a separate statement sent to paintingCoachella innovation lead Sam Schoonover added, “We are actively working on solutions and are confident in our ability to protect the interests of NFT holders at Coachella.”
FTX was one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchanges ahead of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, November 11. Public concerns about FTX arose after CoinDesk reported that the company was mixing client funds with sister trading firm Alameda Research, resulting in a massive surge in withdrawals of $6 billion in 72 hours.
At the time of filing for bankruptcy, FTX suggested it had more than 100,000 creditors, but in a filing updated November 15, lawyers for the company said there could be more than 1 million.
Coachella’s first NFT offering included a Keys set containing 10 different lifetime guest passes with VIP perks. Other, less extravagant options included an NFT Coachella poster and 10 different festival photo sets with “never-before-seen soundscapes.” Now, anyone who hasn’t withdrawn a Coachella NFT to their crypto wallet can’t access it.
