Romania-based crypto start-up ZoidPay wants to buy Lithuanian bank

After receiving an "investment commitment" of USD 75 mln from a short-lived Bahamas-based venture capital fund, GEM Digital Ltd., on November 3, 2022 – which was the GEM's latest if not last deal after a prodigious 6-month activity, Romania-based ZoidPay now says it wants to buy a Lithuanian bank and become more of "a "normal company": namely, gain some revenues, other than those derived from selling token and coins.

Speaking in an interview with Business Magazin about GEM, ZoidPay's co-founder Eduard Oneci disclosed that it is "an arm of a US group" that operates in Bahamas in order to bypass more restrictive regulations in the US. The identity of the US parent company remains unclear. "They reached us, they are a large fund, the headquarters is in New York, and they have an arm in the Bahamas. That arm is in the Bahamas so that from a regulatory perspective, it can invest in crypto and blockchain projects."

GEM Digital Ltd., which by the way, has a website that is malware-infected and thus can not be safely navigated, has operated for exactly six months and ended its activity with ZoidPay's "commitment." The deal ended after 14 months of negotiations, Oneci says.

Notably, the quasi-totality of its 14 deals was operated alone – and not, as it typically happens, in partnership with other VC funds. After "committing" nearly USD 750 mln from May 11 to November 3 last year, GEM announced no other deal so far.

According to the sources familiar with GEM's activity, the "commitments" are, in fact, arrangements aimed to increase a particular token's visibility and thus generate cash from bullish investors – which cash is shared between the "investor" (to cover the "commitment") and the target company (ZoidPay, in this case). As ZoidPay's token failed to peak after the GEM deal in November, chances are that the USD 75 mln will never be raised from investors.

ZoidPay says it raised USD 2.5 mln before the deal with GEM (most likely during the May 2022 peak) – but this will hardly be enough to buy even the smallest Lithuanian bank.

ZoidPay's token ZPAY currently has a self-reported market capitalisation of USD 23 mln.