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The crypto media group The Block has been sold to venture capital group Foresight Ventures, securing its future after the collapse of FTX revealed it had relied on loans from Sam Bankman-Fried.

Singapore-based Foresight said on Monday it would take a majority stake in The Block in a deal that values the US media group at $70mn.

The stake had been held by Michael McCaffrey, who resigned as chief executive of The Block last December when it emerged he had borrowed $43mn in undisclosed loans from Bankman-Fried’s Alameda trading company to support the media company and buy property.

Earlier this month, Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and money laundering in New York for taking billions of dollars of customer deposits to help fund spending by Alameda, which led to FTX’s collapse.

After the disclosure of its reliance on lending from Alameda, The Block has been focused on building a stronger institutional customer base, with a database of industry deals and subscription based-news. According to a person familiar with the matter, Foresight is investing $56mn for an 80 per cent stake in the company. 

The investment also comes at a time when venture capital investment in the crypto market has slowed sharply.

Investors poured roughly $30bn worth of capital into crypto projects in both 2021 and 2022, but this year investment has slowed to just $7bn at the end of September, according to figures from capital markets data provider PitchBook.

Foresight said The Block would continue to operate as an independent business. “We think The Block is one of the crown assets in the crypto media space,” said Forest Bai, Foresight chief executive. “Our view is that the media aspect will continue to drive education and adoption in the space.”

McCaffrey had taken two loans, totalling $27mn, according to reporting by The Block, to buy out shareholders and support the media group. A third, worth $16mn, had been used to buy property in the Bahamas.

“No one at The Block had any knowledge of this financial arrangement besides [McCaffrey],” said Bobby Moran in December 2022, the company’s chief revenue officer at the time. 

Foresight’s crypto-focused portfolio includes investments in Mandarin-language news sites including Foresight News and BlockTempo, as well as Korean media news site CoinNess.