BlockFills, a Chicago-based institutional crypto liquidity provider and lender, has suspended all client deposits and withdrawals and is seeking a buyer or strategic investor after reporting approximately $75 million in losses. The firm's co-founder and CEO, Nicholas Hammer, stepped down in February 2026, with Joseph Perry appointed as interim CEO to manage the crisis and potential sale.
The withdrawal freeze was implemented on February 11, 2026, and remains in effect as of late February, directly impacting the firm's roughly 2,000 institutional clients, which include hedge funds, asset managers, high-net-worth trading firms, and mining firms. The substantial losses stemmed from BlockFills's crypto lending operations, where the value of crypto collateral backing loans plummeted during recent market declines.
Some clients received private warnings to withdraw assets before the official freeze, signaling deepening liquidity stress. The firm, which processed over $60 billion in trading volume in 2025, is backed by investors including Susquehanna Private Equity, CME Ventures, Simplex, C6E, and Nexo. Its current predicament echoes past failures in the crypto lending sector, such as Celsius, Voyager, and Genesis, raising renewed concerns about solvency and counterparty risk across institutional crypto markets.
