On Nov. 9, 2022, a day after the news broke regarding Binance planning to purchase the exchange FTX, the crypto economy dropped 11.17% in 24 hours. The crypto economy has slid under $900 billion for the first time since January 2021. The Binance and FTX news has come as a shock to a lot of people, and FTX’s financial troubles caused a number of executives from well known crypto trading platforms to discuss a concept called proof-of-reserves.
FTX Frontman Falls From Crypto Savior Status to Needing an Emergency Lifeline
People are not too pleased with the situation surrounding FTX, and there’s a lot of unanswered questions right now, and nearly everyone has been searching for answers. While the exchange FTX did not showcase crypto reserve transparency, people did have the perception that FTX was a financially solid company.
In fact, during the start of the crypto winter after the Terra blockchain fallout, CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was perceived as a savior. For instance, the FTX chief executive officer spoke with Bloomberg at the end of May, and Bankman-Fried said his firm was a “profitable company,” and he further added that FTX was ready to spend billions on acquisition deals.
After the exchange Voyager revealed it was suffering from financial hardships, Bankman-Fried said that FTX would help Voyager customers access liquidity. On July 22, during an interview with CNBC’s “Closing Bell,” Bankman-Fried remarked that FTX was willing to deploy “hundreds of millions beyond what we have thus far” to crypto firms suffering from the downturn.
FTX also helped the crypto lender Blockfi, and FTX had an “option to acquire” Blockfi at a price of up to $240 million. In addition to the aforementioned moves FTX made after the Terra fallout, at the end of June 2022, Bankman-Fried warned that more crypto company insolvencies were coming.
Sudden Shift in Narrative Jolts Crypto Investors, FTX’s Financial Troubles Spark Proof-of-Reserve Discussions
With all that in the backdrop, it seemed as though FTX was financially strong and Bankman-Fried was working to help troubled crypto companies. Then on Nov. 6, 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) explained that Binance would be dumping FTX’s exchange token FTT.
The news caused a significant amount of speculation on whether or not FTX was solvent, and the crypto token FTT plummeted in value. Two days later, reports disclosed that onchain data had shown FTX had stopped processing withdrawals. On the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Bitcoin News…
