On November 2, CoinDesk published an article discussing the possible liquidity crisis faced by FTX and its corporate sibling, Alameda Research. Shortly thereafter, Binance agreed to purchase FTX in a stunning turn of events.
The deal was announced in tweets, and it involves two of the biggest crypto trading powers. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the transaction does not affect FTX US and Binance.US, which are two separate companies. FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted this.
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao confirmed the deal on Twitter, saying the two exchanges had signed a non-binding letter of intent. Bankman- Fried and Zhao both said that a full due diligence process would take place in the next couple of days.
Some people interpreted the story as meaning Alameda’s finances – and FTX’s – were not as solid as it had been thought.
Binance’s CZ increased the pressure on Sunday by saying that he planned to sell his holdings of FTX’s FTT token, since the CoinDesk story had shown that much of Alameda’s balance sheet was made up of FTT. “Liquidating our FTT is just post-exit risk management, learning from LUNA,” he tweeted.
“We gave support before, but we won’t pretend to make love after divorce. We are not against anyone. But we won’t support people who lobby against other industry players behind their backs. Onwards.”
Early Tuesday, the situation got worse for FTX customers as they found it difficult to get money out of FTX. Many customers complained in FTX’s Telegram group and on Twitter about difficulties they experienced. In his tweets announcing the deal with Binance, Bankman-Fried wrote that “FTX.us’s withdrawals are and have been live, is fully backed 1:1, and operating normally.”
Investors withdrew a significant amount of assets from FTX over the last 24 hours, cutting the balance there from about 20,000 bitcoins to just one on Tuesday morning. According to data from Coinglass, this happened in waves over the last few days.
