2019:
Binance invested in FTX when FTX was founded.
2021:
FTX bought back Binance´s investments. Binance was given 2.1Billion in BUSD and FTT. Last Sunday that FTT was worth $580 million.
Sam-Bankman-Fried was lobbying with regulators against Binance and even targeted the Binance CEO´s children.
2022 (September):
Leaked “Alameda research” paper, showing their balance sheet is mostly consisting of FTT and locked FTT tokens. This means that FTX and Alameda research are strongly entangled. It is important to know that Alameda research main activity is farming. This means Alameda uses FTT token as collateral to generate yield. In collateralized loans, it is very important that the price of the collateral stays stable, else you have to sell early or deposit extra.
As Alameda research is fully funded by FTX, it means that if the price of the FTT token drops, Alameda has to sell assets or deal with margin calls.
Communication:
CZ, CEO of Binance, stated: Liquidating our FTT is just post-exit risk management learning from Luna. We gave support before, but we won´t pretend to make love after divorce. We are not against anyone. But we won´t support people who lobby against other industry players behind their backs.
Alameda research CEO Caroline replied: If you´re looking into minimize the market impact on your FTT sales, Alameda will happily buy it all from you today at 22$
This send a message that once FTT was trading lower than $22, - liquidations would start taking place in Alameda research.
This was the start sign for traders to start shorting FTT, so betting on FTT going lower.
With that news, FTX exchange holders were massively taking their crypto´s out of the exchange.
On last Tuesday $6 Billion dollar was taken from the FTX exchange. Later that day FTX halted any further withdraws.
FTX asked Binance for help and to take over the FTX exchange. After Binance showed interest, they looked in the bookkeeping of FTX called “due diligence”.
1 day later Binance stated: “As a result of corporate due diligence, as well as the latest news reports regarding mishandled customer funds and alleged US agency investigations, we have decided that we will not pursue the potential acquisition of FTX.com.”
Now it seems that FTX is moving to the graveyard together with Celsius, Voyager, Blockfi, Luna & Three Arrow Capital.
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