FTX CEO becomes second-largest donor to the US Democratic Party after George Soros

What’s new? Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has become the second-largest donor to the Democratic Party of the United States after investor and billionaire George Soros. On the eve of the midterm elections to Congress, which will be held on November 8, the businessmen allocated $39,2 million and $128,5 million, respectively, to support the Democrats The Washington Post reports, citing the data of the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Material on the website of WP

What else is known about election donors? Bankman-Fried ranked fifth in the overall donor rankings. Second, third and fourth places went to investors of the Republican Party. Among them are Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, the owners of the shipping company Uline, Kenneth Griffin, head of hedge fund Citadel, and Jeffrey Yass, head of the trading firm Susquehanna International Group. In total, the 50 largest donors of the US elections have allocated $1,1 billion to support both parties, according to a WP analysis.

Previously, Bankman-Fried mentioned that he was also going to be involved in funding the 2024 presidential election. The planned budget ranges from $100 million to $1 billion.

What is known about FTX? It is a centralized crypto exchange (CEX) headquartered in the Bahamas. It was created in 2018 by trader Sam Bankman-Fried and programmer Gary Wang. The platform has more than one million registered users and features 327 coins and 516 currency pairs. The daily trading volume as of October 31, 13:40 UTC, is $1,43 billion, according to CoinMarketCap. The exchange’s native token, FTT, is trading at $26,27, having gained 2,66% in 24 hours, according to Binance.

Bankman-Fried is also actively investing in buying cryptocurrency companies. In May, he bought a 7,6% stake in online broker Robinhood for $648 million. In September, FTX bought the assets of the bankrupt crypto broker Voyager Digital for $1,42 billion. Also in Q3, the deal to buy Canadian crypto platform Bitvois expected to close. In October, Bankman-Fried announced plans to buy the Coinbase exchange, noting that it has 20 times more users than FTX.