Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of the FTX exchange, wrote a letter of apology to the various investors who participated in the financing of the platform to apologize for the lack of communication on his part and the suddenness of the events. Who is concerned ?
Who are the financial supporters directly affected by the takeover of FTX?
How quickly the decision to buy FTX from Binance seems to have been made will have been as brutal for the market as for the investors, or even for the CEO of FTX himself. Indeed, Sam Bankman-Fried apologized to the various direct financial supporters of the exchange in a letter forwarded by email:
“I’m sorry for having been difficult to contact for the past few days. […] I wish I had more details for you now, but I haven’t yet. »
Through this brief press release, which all the same shows quite clearly the sudden appearance of eventsSam Bankman-Fried assures that the protection of customers remains the priority of FTX, and that other details would be announced soon.
Among these investors, we find in particular asset management giant BlackRock, the investment funds Sequoia Capital, Paradigm and Tiger Global, or even the Japanese holding company SoftBank. For information, it should also be noted that Binance Labs had made a strategic investment in FTX during the year 2019.
Valued at more than $32 billion after a round of $400 million last February, the second largest cryptocurrency platform in the world then announced that it would use the funds raised to carry out mergers and acquisitions and obtain additional licenses worldwide.
This latest fundraising saw the participation of Singaporean public investor Temasek in addition to various ecosystem players.
👉 Find our recap of the FTX / Binance case
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A sudden event with tragic consequences
And of course, beyond institutional investors, countless everyday investors found themselves hurt by the news and its consequences. Withdrawals blocked on FTX, fall of all tokens relating to FTX investments, in particular those of the Solana ecosystem (SOL) and even worse: a total loss of confidence in the biggest players in our ecosystem.
Indeed, the news is all the more shocking as it concerns one of the largest exchanges in the world, often considered the direct competitor of Binancewhich had announced the acquisition of plummeting funds such as Voyager Digital not so long ago in order to save the cryptocurrency market from a greater fall – and yet.
Thereby, testimonials are multiplying on Twitterwhether well-known personalities in our ecosystem or strangers. @Cobie for example, showed his amazement through a short but eloquent thread:
Arthur can’t do show today, am going back to bed.
In my decade of crypto, think this exchange rug is by far the worst ever. Almost no time to react and lots of long-term and smart crypto ppl impacted by it.
—Cobie (@cobie) November 9, 2022
” […] In my decade of crypto, I think this rug pull is by far the worst ever. Almost no time to react and a lot of well thought out long-term cryptocurrencies have been affected. When Gox arrived, it made sense. Everything was quite new, when the rumors started it was very plausible. Not all exchanges that have rugged in the past felt safe going through a pre-rug. I thought there was probably less than a 1% chance that FTX was insolvent. »
@AlgodTradingthe co-founder of investment fund Capital78, also explained his disgust and surprise:
” I had no idea I was potentially going to lose 8 figures in a day without being able to make a withdrawal because of this fucking KYC nonsense [Know Your Customer ; NDLR]. »
Or @CryptoKaleothe co-founder of LedgArt:
“The last 24 hours have been extremely difficult. I’ve suffered a massive loss, and an exchange I’ve trusted for years is at the center of one of the biggest crypto banking busts we’ve seen. I know that I am not the only one affected by this situation, and my heart goes out to those who find themselves in a similar situation. […] Last night I was completely in the dark. I wanted to comment on everything that was going on, but I was stuck in my thinking. »
An episode that will certainly have shocked many people, whose purpose remains far from clear given the many spin-offs it could have.
👉 On the same subject – Could Coinbase encounter the same difficulties as FTX?
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Passionate about the world of decentralized finance and the novelties brought by Web 3.0, I write articles for Cryptoast to help make the blockchain more accessible to everyone. Convinced that cryptocurrencies will change the future very soon.
Maximilien Prue
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