The rise and fall of the virtual currency exchange FTX

FTX has begun bankruptcy proceedings in the United States, and its chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, has resigned, the cryptocurrency exchange announced on Friday.

Here is the history of FTX since its founding in 2019.

2019:

May – Former Wall Street trader Sam Bankman-Fried and former Google employee Gary Wang founded FTX, the owner and operator of the FTX.COM cryptocurrency exchange.

2021:

July – A $900 million funding round values ​​FTX at $18 billion.

September – FTX signs sponsorship deal with Mercedes Formula 1 team.

October – FTX has raised capital at a valuation of $25 billion from investors including Singapore’s Temasek and Tiger Global.

2022:

Jan. 27 – FTX’s U.S. division has announced it has reached an $8 billion valuation after raising $400 million in its first round of funding from investors including SoftBank and Temasek.

Jan. 31 – FTX has raised $400 million from investors including SoftBank, reaching a valuation of $32 billion.

June 4 – FTX has reportedly secured the naming rights to the Miami Heat’s home court in a $135 million sponsorship deal.

July 1 – FTX has signed a deal with an option to buy troubled cryptocurrency lender BlockFi for up to $240 million.

July 22nd – FTX has offered partial relief for bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Voyager Digital. Voyager called it a “lowball bid.”

Aug. 19 – U.S. banking regulators have ordered FTX to stop making “false and misleading” claims about whether its funds are guaranteed by the government.

Nov. 2 – Crypto news website CoinDesk has reported a leaked balance sheet showing Bankman-Fried crypto trading firm Alameda Research’s heavy reliance on FTX’s native token, FTT. . Reuters could not confirm the reports.

Nov. 6 – Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao says his company will liquidate its holdings in FTT following unspecified “recent revelations.”

Nov 7 – Bankman-Fried said, “FTX is fine. Assets are fine.”

Nov. 8 – Binance has said it is planning a deal to acquire FTX.

Nov. 9 – Binance has decided not to pursue a non-binding agreement to bail out FTX.

Nov 10 – FTX has suspended new customer onboarding and withdrawals until further notice

Nov. 10 – Bankman-Fried wrote a memo to staff saying it was seeking funding and had met with Justin Sun, founder of the crypto token Tron.

Nov. 10 – Reuters reports that Bankman-Fried is looking to put together a rescue package of up to $9.4 billion for FTX.

November 11 – FTX, along with its US division, cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research, and approximately 130 other affiliates, will begin voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States. Bankman-Fried resigns as his CEO.

Nov. 12 – At least $1 billion in customer funds have disappeared from FTX, Reuters reports.

November 12th – FTX announces it has detected fraudulent transactions. The blockchain analytics firm estimates he has lost $659 million to $473 million in “suspicious circumstances.”

Nov. 13 – Bahamian securities regulators have launched an investigation into the collapse of FTX.

According to private market data provider PitchBook, the list of investors in FTX since 2019 is:

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 Labs, FBG Capital, Galois Capital, Greylock

Capital Management, Lemniscap, Race Capital, IVP, HOF

capital

2020 Bitscale Capital, BR Capital, Evangelion Capital,

Inves Exnetwork Capital, Genbloc Capital, Insignius

Torz 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, Thomas Bravo, Kevin O’Leary,

Willoughby Capital, Digital Currency Group, Third

Points, Tribe Capital, Bond Capital, Standard

Investments, Circle, Ribit Capital, Multicoin

Capital, Mayfield, 6th Event, Abstract Ventures,

Alan Howard, Altimeter Capital Management, Bond,

Schoeneck & King, DHVC, Israeli English, Mark VC

2022 Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Ontario teacher

Inves Pension Plan, K5 Global, MiH Ventures, Mint Ventures,

tors NKB Ventures, Signum Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Lux

Capital, Fenrir, Claritus Capital, Hardyaka, Early

Capital Group, Chapter One Ventures, One Block

Capital, Chainfund Capital, A’Z Angels, Allied

Investors Group, Arkstream Capital

(Edited by Harish Sridharan, Bengaluru; edited by Sam Holmes, Shri Navaratnam, Sriraj Kalluvila)