And Warren Buffett delle crypto a protagonist of yet another case of liquidity alert in the world of digital currencies. Sam Bankman-Fried and his FTX raise the white flag and must receive the rescue of rival Binance. After a troubled week, triggered by Coin Desk rumors about the risk of liquidity problems for FTX and its sister company Alameda Research, the announcement has come that Binance will buy the rival cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The deal unites two powers of cryptocurrency trading. Earlier this year, FTX was valued at $ 32 billion and Binance is the largest cryptocurrency platform by volume. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The US division of FTX, a separate entity known as FTX US, is not included in the agreement.
“Things are back to square one and the first and last investors of FTX.com are the same: we have reached an agreement on a strategic transaction with Binance for FTX.com (pending DD etc.),” he tweeted yesterday. Sam Bankman-Fried, ceo di FTX.
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao confirmed the deal, stating that the two exchanges have signed a non-binding letter of intent. Bankman-Fried and Zhao both said a full due diligence process will be underway over the next two days.
According to what CoinDesk reported on November 2, Alameda Research’s balance sheet is too dependent on illiquid tokens, including FTX’s FTT. Both FTX and Alameda were founded and are largely owned by Bankman-Fried. Rumor that has sparked the fear that the balance sheet of Alameda and therefore also that of FTX was not as solid as previously thought. The sharp decline in the value of the FTT token had prompted Sam Bankman-Fried to reassure about the absence of a liquidity crisis, but the market continued to sell heavily with fears of a contagion effect that pushed even the major cryptocurrencies down. .
Bitcoin has plummeted 8% in the past 24 hours with a low of $ 17,484. Worse are the ethereum with -15% in the $ 1,200 area, Dogecoin (-16%) and Solana (-34%).
Since the beginning of the year, bitcoin has collapsed by over 60% and ethereum by 65%.