BlockFi was a New York-based crypto financial services company founded in 2017 by Zac Prince and Flori Marquez. The firm built one of the earliest retail-facing crypto lending platforms in the United States, offering interest-bearing accounts, crypto-backed loans, and a Bitcoin rewards credit card. At its peak in 2021, BlockFi held more than $10 billion in assets under management and carried a reported valuation of $3 billion after closing a $400 million Series D round led by Bain Capital Ventures and Tiger Global.
As a corporation, BlockFi made strategic equity investments in adjacent crypto infrastructure and fintech companies alongside its core lending business. The firm focused on the United States market but maintained a global customer base across retail and institutional segments. Its investors included Bain Capital Ventures, Morgan Creek Digital, Coinbase Ventures, Valar Ventures, and SoFi, reflecting broad confidence from both traditional finance and crypto-native capital in 2020–2021.
Notable investments
BlockFi operated primarily as a financial services company rather than a dedicated venture fund. Its corporate investment activity spanned roughly 11 known portfolio positions. Public information on the full list of specific portfolio companies is limited. The firm is known to have had financial relationships and strategic stakes in companies operating across crypto lending infrastructure, custody, and payments rails. Specific deal sizes were not disclosed publicly.
Team
- Zac Prince – Co-founder and CEO. Previously held roles at Orchard Platform and Demand Media. Built BlockFi from a two-person startup to over 850 employees at peak.
- Flori Marquez – Co-founder and COO/President. Background in structured lending and fintech operations. Oversaw product and operational scaling through 2021–2022.
Public information on other named investment decision-makers within BlockFi's corporate ventures function is limited. The firm did not operate a separately branded venture arm.
Recent activity
BlockFi's trajectory changed sharply in 2022. The company had extended a significant credit line to FTX and Alameda Research. When FTX collapsed in November 2022, BlockFi faced an immediate liquidity crisis and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey on November 28, 2022. The bankruptcy filing listed liabilities of $1–10 billion and more than 100,000 creditors.
Bankruptcy proceedings continued through 2023 and into 2024. A reorganization plan was confirmed, prioritizing repayment to retail creditors. BlockFi's ability to recover funds owed by FTX's estate became a central variable in creditor recoveries. The firm began repaying creditors in early 2024 after court approvals.
BlockFi's story stands as one of the clearest examples of contagion risk in crypto. The company had sound product-market fit and genuine user growth, but its concentrated exposure to a single counterparty – FTX – proved fatal. Any portfolio companies BlockFi held equity stakes in faced uncertainty about the fate of those positions during bankruptcy proceedings, as assets were subject to the estate's liquidation process.
As of mid-2026, BlockFi no longer operates as an active business or investor. Its legacy is instructive for the crypto lending sector: yield products and undisclosed counterparty risk remain a structural challenge. The SEC and CFTC enforcement actions against BlockFi in early 2022, which resulted in a $100 million settlement, also set precedent for how US regulators treat unregistered crypto interest products.