“I’m sorry. I f*cked up.” FTX CEO breaks his silence and explains the crypto exchange’s collapse

Sam Bankman-Fried added that the platform will continue to operate after the liquidity issues are resolved

10.11.2022 - 16:05

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2 min

What’s new? Sam Bankman-Fried, the head of the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange, posted a series of tweets in which he spoke about the situation. He admitted that he “f*ucked up” and could have done better, as well as shared a number of important statements about the future work of the platform.

1) I'm sorry. That's the biggest thing.I fucked up, and should have done better. — SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 10, 2022

What did the head of FTX say? Bankman-Fried noted that the funds will be reimbursed first to the exchange’s customers, then to investors and employees. In this, he said, FTX has liquidity, and reserves exceed the total value of user deposits. The problem is delivering that liquidity. Once the problem is resolved, the exchange will continue to exist. At the moment, Bankman-Fried is looking for partners to raise funds and expects the result next week. That said, Alameda Research will no longer trade on FTX.

He stressed that these statements do not apply to the US arm, FTX US, the company continues to operate as usual and has no liquidity problems.

Among other interesting statements by Bankman-Fried, it is worth highlighting the words about recognizing the victory of a “sparring partner” and praise for a “well played” game. Most likely, he was referring to the founder of the Binance exchange Changpeng Zhao, who, in part, started the collapse of FTX.

On November 6, Zhao announced that he had begun liquidating Binance’s position in the exchange’s tokens FTT. This, in turn, led to FTX’s liquidity shortfall. The parties then entered into a tentative takeover deal of FTX, which further collapsed its token rate. However, after due diligence, Binance rejected the deal. As reported by Bloomberg, the hole in FTX’s balance sheet was $8 billion.

For what led to the lightning-fast collapse of the FTX exchange and how events will develop further, read the GetBlock Magazine’s article.

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