A crypto merchant bank founded by Michael Novogratz, a former hedge fund manager, has received $71.2 million after selling its shares in Block.one, the force behind the EOS blockchain.

In an announcement, the crypto merchant bank, Galaxy Digital, said it closed the transaction on May 20 after a tender offer for its position in Block.one was made on April 18. According to Galaxy Digital, 123 percent return was made on the realized investment. Following the transaction, its remaining shares in Block.one will no longer maintain an influential investment position.

In the press release, Novogratz said:

The Block.one’s tender offer acceptance reflected on a decision to rebalance the portfolio in maintainers of an appropriate level of diversification after the position increased due to its substantial outperformance relative to the remainder of the portfolio.

Even after the crypto merchant bank parts ways with EOS blockchain developer, it mentioned that it will still partner with Block.one on other business like Galaxy EOS VC Fund that primarily backs startups that develop applications on the EOS blockchain. In January 2018, Block.one and Galaxy Digital entered a joint venture to launch the EOSIO Ecosystem Fund worth $325 million.

Last year in July, Block.one received investments from several big-name investors like Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel.

The exit of Galaxy Digital comes as part of Block.one’s buyback program of ten percent of the companies’ shares.

A report on Wednesday from Bloomberg stated that Block.one’s buyback offer values itself at around $2.3 billion, nearly 66 times from what it valued in the 2017 seed funding round. For instance, it was repurchased at $1,500 per share but during the 2017 round, it was offered at $22.5 per share.

A report stated that Block.one had about $3 billion assets, including investments and cash at the end of February. Based on an email on March 19, Block.one sent to shareholders, Block.one holds roughly 140, 000 Bitcoin.

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