FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has been shopping for bargains amid the industry’s recent carnage and said he still has cash to spend if opportunity knocks.
It may seem strange. Other multi-billion-dollar crypto giants spiraled into bankruptcy this year. FTX’s main competitor, Coinbase, has seen its shares plunge 70% and has laid off a fifth of its workforce as crypto prices crashed.
Yet, FTX is somehow emerging as an industry lifeline.
The 30-year-old billionaire says it was a result of stashing away ample cash, keeping overhead low, avoiding lending and being able to move quickly as a private company.
“It was important that the industry get through this in one piece,” Bankman-Fried told CNBC in an interview at FTX headquarters in Nassau, Bahamas. “It’s not going to be good for anyone long-term if we have real pain and real blowouts — it’s not fair to customers and it’s not going to be good for regulation.”
The crypto industry saw billions of dollars wiped out during the weeks surrounding the implosion of cryptocurrency Terra USD and the failure of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Lenders with exposure to Three Arrows were the next domino to fall. In July, FTX signed a deal that gives it the option to buy lender BlockFi after providing a $250 million line of credit. FTX also extended $500 million to struggling Voyager Digital, which later declared bankruptcy, and was in discussions to acquire South Korean Bithumb.
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has lost more than half its value this year.
‘Not immune’
While Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX is suffering from the downturn in digital assets, he said market share growth helped offset the pain.
“I don’t think we’re immune from it,” Bankman-Fried said. “But we put a lot of work in to growing our footprint over the last year … and we have a less retail heavy platform — retail tends to be more market-sentiment-dependent.”
Most of FTX’s volume comes from customers trading “at least” $100,000 per day, he said. Bankman-Fried described the group as “highly engaged, high volume” users that are “fairly sophisticated.” It ranges from small quant trading firms to family offices and day traders. FTX’s demographic has been less price sensitive and held up relatively well in crypto’s bear market, according to the company.
In addition to its success with professional traders, it’s making an expensive land grab for the U.S. retail trading audience. FTX bought the the naming rights to the Miami Heat’s NBA arena, formerly American Airlines Center. It has courted high-profile investors and brand ambassadors including Tom Brady and Giselle Bündchen, and ran a Super Bowl ad featuring Larry David.
The cryptocurrency exchange brought in roughly a billion dollars in revenue last year, CNBC reported in August. Bankman-Fried confirmed that the numbers were in the “right ballpark” and this year would see a “similar” figure, depending on how severe the market slowdown is. He also said the company is…
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