The post comes as the one-time hero of the crypto sector begs for billions of dollars to stave off bankruptcy. It’s been a quick drop for FTX this week. Earlier this year, the exchange was valued at $32 billion, but now, Bankman-Fried is again looking for someone to stop FTX after rival exchange Binance pulled out of a deal to acquire it. “Also I should have reached out more recently,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “Obviously – my hands were tied during the potential Binance deal. I wasn’t particularly allowed to say much publicly. But of course the fact that we ended up there in the first place is mine.” The CEO of FTX also gave the latest on the situation with the beleaguered crypto exchange. Excluding its U.S. operations, Bankman-Fried says its international operation has a total market value of assets and collateral that is higher than customer deposits, but says it is “different from liquidity for delivery — as you can tell from the status of withdrawals.” “The full story here is one I’m still fleshing out every detail of, but as a very high-level person, I’ve done it twice,” Bankman-Fried wrote. FTX’s CEO says his first mistake was poor internal labeling of bank accounts, which meant he was “essentially out of touch” with users’ sense of margin. “I thought it was a lot lower.” On Sunday, he says the stock market saw about $5 billion in withdrawals, which he called “the largest by a huge margin.” Bankman-Fried says his number one priority “by far” is “doing right by users.” To that end, he says he and the team are spending the week doing everything they can to increase liquidity. “I can’t make any promises about that,” he said. “But I will try”.
Next steps
The head of FTX also says that they are in discussions with several players about the next steps. “Every penny of this — and of existing collateral — will go straight to users unless or until we get it right by them,” he pledged in his tweet thread on Thursday. “After that, investors — old and new — and workers who have fought for what’s right for their careers and who weren’t responsible for any of the f–ups.” Hours after Binance canceled its deal to acquire FTX, Justin Sun — the founder of cryptocurrency tron — tweeted at 10 p.m. on Wednesday that it is “putting together a solution” with Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange to “start a path forward.” Sun was tight-lipped on the details of the deal, but said his team was “working around the clock to prevent further deterioration” and added that he believed the situation was “manageable” following the “holistic approach” he had been taking with partners. of. Although Bankman-Fried retweeted the post, it’s unclear if Sun plans to acquire FTX in a deal similar to the one announced with Binance earlier this week — or if it’s just working to bail out those who own tron. token in the beleaguered stock market. It is also possible for the message to be implemented in no action. The Chinese-born businessman has been involved in many controversies and publicity stunts in the past. In 2019, he paid $4.6 million to have lunch with Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, only to abruptly cancel. The lunch finally took place in 2020. It was accused of ruthlessly copying other technologies, including the ethereum blockchain and the broken algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD, for its own efforts, as CNBC previously reported. FTX said in an email to CNBC that those shared via Twitter are the only official statements FTX will issue at this time. CNBC reached out to the Sun, but did not immediately receive a response to our request for comment. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
