FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday, one of the highest profile crypto blowups, after traders rushed to withdraw $6 billion from the platform in just 72 hours
FTX was commencing bankruptcy proceedings in the United States and its Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned, the crypto exchange said on Friday, in a spectacular collapse that will likely send shivers through the industry.
Here is a history of FTX since its foundation in 2019:
May, 2019 – Former Wall Street trader Sam Bankman-Fried and ex-Google employee Gary Wang founded FTX, the owner and operator of FTX.COM cryptocurrency exchange.
July, 2021: A $900 million funding round valued FTX at $18 billion. September – FTX signed a sponsorship deal with Mercedes’ Formula 1 team.
October, 2021 – FTX raised capital at a valuation of $25 billion from investors including Singapore’s Temasek and Tiger Global.
2022 onwards:
January 27 – FTX’s U.S. arm said it was valued at $8 billion after raising $400 million in its first funding round from investors including SoftBank and Temasek.
Jan 31 – FTX raised $400 million from investors including SoftBank at a valuation of $32 billion.
June 4 – FTX signed a reportedly $135 million sponsorship deal for naming rights of the Miami Heat’s home court.
July 1 – FTX signed a deal with an option to buy embattled crypto lender BlockFi for up to $240 million.
July 22 – FTX offered a partial bailout of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital. Voyager called it a “low-ball bid”.
August 19 – A U.S. bank regulator ordered FTX to halt “false and misleading” claims it had made about whether funds at the company are insured by the government.
November 2 – Crypto news website CoinDesk reported a leaked balance sheet that showed Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm, was heavily dependent on FTX’s native token, FTT. Reuters was unable to verify the report.
November 6 – Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said his firm would liquidate its holdings of FTT due to unspecified “recent revelations”.
November 7 – Bankman-Fried said “FTX is fine. Assets are fine”.
November 8 – Binance said it was planning a deal to acquire FTX.
November 9 – Binance decided against pursuing a nonbinding agreement to bail out FTX.
November 10 – FTX suspended on-boarding of new clients as well as withdrawals until further notice
November 10 – Bankman-Fried told staff in a memo that he was seeking a capital raising and had held talks with Justin Sun, founder of the crypto token Tron
November 10 – Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried is seeking to put together a rescue package of up to $9.4 billion for FTX
November 11 – FTX starts voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States, along with its U.S. unit, crypto trading firm Alameda Research and nearly 130 other affiliates. Bankman-Fried resigns as CEO.
November 12: FTX announces it had detected unauthorised access, and analysts said hundreds of millions of dollars of assets had been moved from the platform in “suspicious circumstances”. There was speculation about the whereabouts of Bankman-Fried.
Here is a list of FTX’s investors since 2019, according to private market data provider, PitchBook.
2019 – Tiger Global Management, Insight Partners, SoftBank Inves Investment Advisors, Temasek, Telstra Ventures, tors Teachers Venture Growth, Steadview Capital Management, Redline DAO, Paradigm, New Enterprise Associates, Lightspeed Ventures, 500 Global, Binance Labs, Consensus Lab, FBG Capital, Galois Capital, Greylock Capital Management, Lemniscap, Race Capital, IVP, HOF Capital
2020 – Bitscale Capital, BR Capital, Evangelion Capital, Inves Exnetwork Capital, Genblock Capital, Insignius tors Capital, Pantera Capital
2021 – BlackRock, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Samsung NEXT Inves Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Base10 tors Partners, Astronaut Capital, AGE Crypto, Vetamer Capital, Senator Investment Group, Sea Capital, Paradigm, Meritech Capital Partners, ICONIQ Growth, Third Point Ventures, Thoma Bravo, Kevin O’Leary, Willoughby Capital, Digital Currency Group, Third Point, Tribe Capital, Bond Capital, Standard Investments, Circle , Ribbit Capital, Multicoin Capital, Mayfield, 6ixth Event, Abstract Ventures, Alan Howard, Altimeter Capital Management, Bond, Schoeneck & King, DHVC, Israel Englander, Mark VC
2022 – Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Ontario Teachers Inves Pension Plan, K5 Global, MiH Ventures, Mint Ventures, tors NKB Ventures, Signum Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Lux Capital, Fenrir, Claritas Capital, Hard Yaka, Early Capital Group, Chapter One Ventures, One Block Capital, Chainfund Capital, A’Z Angels, Allied Investors Group, ArkStream Capital.
Source: indianexpress.com
Featured image from: reuters.com