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FTX CEO Spends 5 Hours per day to Deal with Regulatory Issues

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried revealed he spends five hours a day to deal with regulatory and licensing of cryptocurrencies issues, according to a CNBC report Monday.

Speaking at a recorded interview with CNBC on-air Monday. The 29-year-old billionaire said the company is “applying for licenses in several jurisdictions right now”, spending time to deal with cryptocurrency regulations, indicating “the landscape is changing” and need to keep adapting amid the increased oversight from the global regulators.

“I think it’s probably a good solid five hours a day or so that I’m spending on everything from regulation to licensing and everything in between.”

Bankman-Fired said his Hong Kong-based crypto derivatives exchange firm tries to comply with various jurisdictions’ varying regulations. He implies the current legal challenge is due to the absence of clarity of laws.

Bankman-Fried also indicated that many regulators are finding out what the contexts for crypto derivatives should be like without combining this matter together. He expects to have more development to “arise in the coming three to five years by working together with regulators.”

Last month, FTX announced that the company had raised $900 million in series B financing, enabling the company’s market value to reach an estimated $18 billion. Bankman-Fried explained the majority of capital would be used for acquisition and expanding development.

FTX is now the world’s fifth-biggest Bitcoin futures exchange, according to data from Skew.com. FTX Exchange has raised a total of $16M in funding over the last four rounds. The previous financing occurred on March 2, 2020. Leading investors include Binance and One Block Capital.

FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Launches a Marketplace for Selling and Buying NFTs

FTX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange in the US, has announced a launch of its NFT marketplace that aims to enable its users to create their own artworks and mint them as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the exchange, to be sold within its marketplace.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX crypto exchange, talked about the news and stated that the company’s latest development offers the ability for people to mint NFTs directly on the exchange.

FTX, based in California, unveiled its NFT marketplace on Monday, September 6, as a move to allow people to create, display, and sell their works directly on the US exchange, as interest in the digital collectables continues surging.

Based on the development, Bankman-Fried tweeted: “Make your own NFTs.”

Generally, buying and selling NFTs does not come cheap, though. FTX plans to charge 5% to the buyer and the seller per sale – a 10% fee in total.

Currently, users can only store and view such NFTs within the exchange. However, FTX’s marketplace will be expanding to support deposits and withdrawals within a few weeks, allowing users to sell mainstream NFT projects on the exchange.

FTX clarified that users don’t have to be in the US to use the NFT marketplace. The CEO said the NFT marketplace can be used globally, with international users accessing both the crypto exchange and the NFT platform.

Bankman-Fried stated that payments for the NFTs would be cross-chain enabled between Solana and Ethereum. This means that the platform will allow trading tokens across both blockchains, executed using smart contracts or applications that can connect with two different chains.

By storing the NFT as information on a blockchain, it becomes almost impossible to remove or edit it, making it a permanent record of the owner’s purchase.

The NFT Boom

While most NFT trading volume conducts on the OpenSea marketplace, a rising number of cryptocurrency exchanges are beginning to realise that they can directly provide similar services to their millions of users.

FTX is the latest crypto exchange to announce the launch of its NFT marketplace.

In April, Binance cryptocurrency exchange launched its own NFT marketplace where users can create, buy, and sell digital collector’s items, popularly known as NFTs.

On September 2, the OKEx crypto exchange launched a new platform for minting and trading NFTs.

The demands for non-fungible tokens have significantly surged, with their sales soared to over 2 billion in the first quarter of 2021. That figure does not even account for the record-breaking $69 million NFT sold by digital artist Mike Winkelmann (Beeple) at Christie’s in March.

Crypto Exchange FTX Relocates its HQ to the Bahamas from Hong Kong

Digital assets derivatives exchange FTX has relocated their headquarter to Nassau, the Bahamas, from Hong Kong, citing fewer regulation restrictions in the country.

Online media Blockworks reported Thursday, citing 29-year-old billionaire FTX CEO and Founder Sam Bankman Fried, that the company has departed from Hong Kong and currently operate as Nassau-based in the Bahamas. Sam Bankman Friedindicated that “the proactive stance (was) taken by The Bahamas and its regulatory bodies on cryptocurrencies” is one of the primary reasons FTX is moving to the nation.

The official webpage of FTX has updated the latest headquarter in the Bahamas.

Reportedly, CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ryan Salame has moved to the Bahamas to lead the local business expansion on the Caribbean Sea Island. On Wednesday, Sam Bankman Fried celebrated along with Salame for the success of registration for the Bahamian subsidiary, FTX Digital Markets, which the Securities Commission of the Bahamas has registered as a digital assets business under the Digital Asset Registered Exchanges Bill or the “DARE Act,” according to the press-release.

In August, Sam Bankman Fried revealed that he needed to spend at least five hours per day dealing with regulatory issues. He also mentioned that the company was applying for licenses in several jurisdictions for operations during that time.

Hong Kong is considered one of the crypto-friendly regions running crypto businesses. It’s attracting more crypto businesses to settle down in Hong Kong recently. However, Hong Kong financial watchdogs continue to strengthen supervision with stricter regulations on crypto sectors and crackdowns on illegal crypto transactions and relative activities. Last month, the local regulator Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) had warned Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) are still unauthorized investment schemes yet. No issuer or firm is allowed to offer any proscribed investment options without proper registration with the commission.

Despite the stricter rules applying to crypto regulation, the period of quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak in the city could be the possible final straw that triggered the departure of the FTX.

Bankman-Fried has previously complained on Twitter that despite being fully vaccinated, he was delayed in June returning to Hong Kong because his Covid test result omitted his middle name.

19 Crypto Billionaires Rank among Forbes’ Annual World’s Billionaires List, Increased by 58% from Last Year

The number of crypto billionaires increased from twelve in 2020 to nineteen in 2021, according to the Forbes’ Annual World’s Billionaires list.

In 2021, the 58.3% surge in crypto billionaires was fuelled by Web3 innovations, the exponential growth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and the attainment of all-time high (ATH) prices by various cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

The top-three spots are dominated by crypto exchange founders, with Changpeng Zhao “CZ” of Binance taking the helm based on a net worth of $65 billion. CZ is followed by Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX, and Brian Armstrong, the founder and CEO of Coinbase, with a net worth of $24 billion and $6.6 billion, respectively.

Based on Forbes findings, CZ owns 70% of Binance as the 19th richest person globally. Binance dominance in the crypto space continues to be felt, given that it facilitated nearly two-thirds of all trading volume made by centralized exchanges. As a result, generating nearly $16 billion in revenue.

The newcomers on the crypto billionaire list include Nikil Viswanathan and Joseph Lau, the co-founders of Web3 infrastructure company Alchemy, with a $2.4 billion net worth each.

The others are Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah, the co-founders of the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea, with a $2.2 billion net worth apiece.

Some notable names also on the list include Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Gemini, Michael Saylor of MicroStrategy, and venture capitalist Tim Draper.

MicroStrategy, a leading business intelligence firm, has been leading the race in crypto institutional investment. At one time, Saylor opined that MicroStrategy was more inclined towards Bitcoin because it provided the best returns compared to other assets like precious metals, real estate, derivatives, stocks, and government debt.

Crypto exchange Gemini recently released “The Global State of Crypto Report”. It noted that cryptocurrency reached a tipping point in 2021 because it evolved from a niche investment into a globally established asset class.

Goldman Sachs Lobbying FTX Exchange for an IPO Move

American investment banking giant Goldman Sachs is notably lobbying FTX Derivatives exchange if the crypto trading platform decides to go public through Initial Public Offering (IPO) shortly.

According to a report by the Financial Times, Goldman Sachs’ Chief Executive Officer (CEO), David Solomon, met with FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried back in March as both discussed many areas in which they can collaborate.

Primarily, Goldman Sachs was reportedly bolstering its role as an advisor to FTX related to the exchange’s dealings with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The American banking giant will also like to be the broker should FTX decide to go public, assuming a similar role when Coinbase Global Inc went public on the Nasdaq Exchange last year.

Besides these salient aspects, the duo also discussed private fundraising options, collaboration on the market making in crypto trades, and Goldman offering traditional banking services to FTX, according to the sources that spoke to the Financial Times.

FTX Exchange is a trading platform that is making waves in many aspects. Following the enormous funds raised by the crypto unicorn in the past couple of years, it hit a $32 billion valuation in January. The exchange’s positive growth momentum has attracted a number of traditional legacy investors, including the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan and Softbank, amongst others.

The massive valuation of FTX has made the next logical milestone pegged at an IPO, and should Coinbase’s success story be trailed, the Bankman-Fried platform could also hit it off with investors in the public market.

Besides its global operations, FTX has a dedicated and regulated subsidiary in the United States dubbed FTX.US, a startup that has grown its reputation for inking partnerships with sports teams and its strategic acquisitions, the latest of which is LedgerX, a CFTC-regulated derivatives service provider.

SBF Suggests LUNA's Collapse Different to Theranos, but Questioning its Marketing Strategy

FTX Derivatives Exchange’s billionaire CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, known as SBF, has faulted the marketing strategies that were employed by the embattled Terra blockchain to gain acceptance from the public.

These comments come on the heels of the protocol’s two tokens, LUNA and UST, losing their value and peg to the US Dollar respectively.

While many people have been comparing the crash of Terra to the collapse of Theranos, a once innovative healthcare technology that was founded and managed by Elizabeth Holmes. To Bankman-Fried, the downfall of both startups cannot be compared as Elizabeth lied to investors about a technology that was not working in order to keep getting funding.

He believed the operations and management of Terra, led by Do Kwon, were transparent. The face of the Terra ecosystem has not failed to talk about the fact that UST is not backed by the US Dollar but by a set of volatile cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Terra. Should these coins plunge, the stablecoin stands the risk of also losing its peg.

While Bankman-Fried noted that he is not making excuses for Kwon and the Terra purveyors, he believes the fall of the protocol should be markedly classified differently from that of Theranos.

“Luna was a case of mass enthusiasm, excitement, and–frankly–marketing and memes–driving people to believe in something which was going to falter according to the publicly available information. That marketing was probably bad. But it wasn’t the *same* type of bad as Theranos,” He said in a Twitter thread over the weekend.

The fall of the Terra protocol has been classified as a watershed moment for the cryptocurrency ecosystem. While it seems as though the network cannot be salvaged, a number of support and proposals to revive the ailing blockchain is being proposed as we speak.

In a bid to make his followers understand that Terra is not necessarily conceived as a Ponzi scheme, Bankman-Fried said other legitimate companies, including Netflix, have also lost at least 50% of their value since the start of the year.

Sam Bankman-Fried Donates $16m to Democratic Super PACs in April: Bloomberg

FTX Derivatives Exchange’s Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried has doubled down in his donations to Super Political Action Committees (PACs), with a total donation of $16 million in April.

As reported by Bloomberg, the donations were made in two tranches of $10 million and $6 million respectively.

The $10 million donations were given to Protect Our Future, a Super PAC that has a commitment to super candidates that have promises to help prevent the next pandemic.

As the mid-term elections are approaching, the PAC has spent as much as $19 million to back Democratic candidates, including Carrick Flynn. Flynn ran for an open seat in Oregon’s 6th Congressional District but lost the primaries to Andrea Salinas, a state lawmaker who, according to Bloomberg could be Oregon’s first Latino woman elected to Congress should she win the seat in November.

The donated $6 million were given to a PAC connected to House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi dubbed The House Majority PAC. The donated funds have earned Bankman-Fried the highest donor to the PAC in April. This election season, Sam Bankman-Fried who has seen his net worth slashed by almost half to $11.3 billion in the wake of the current crypto market onslaught has donated a total of $31.5 million thus far.

Back in 2020, the FTX boss was the VIP amongst the biggest donors to President Joe Biden’s campaign and earned him his reputation as one of the top crypto investors with active engagement in American politics.

The mid-term elections, as with other mid-terms are a very pivotal one in the United States, and this time around, the Democrats will be looking to either maintain or extend the majority leader in the House. With a crypto representation joining hands to fund candidates, it is indicative of the role of crypto in seeking the common societal good.

FTX Denies Making Internal Deliberations on How to Acquire Robinhood

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX Derivatives Exchange is reportedly making internal deliberations on how to acquire Nasdaq-listed brokerage firm Robinhood Markets Inc. However, FTX denied its claims.

Bloomberg reported earlier, citing people familiar with the deliberations, that the crypto behemoth has not made a formal offer to acquire Robinhood at this time, and one of the sources says the final decision may change in the coming days.

“We are excited about Robinhood’s business prospects and potential ways we could partner with them,” Bankman-Fried said Monday in an emailed statement, according to Bloomberg, “that being said, there are no active M&A conversations with Robinhood.”

Robinhood’s stock has once surged by 15% after Bloomberg reported that FTX was looking to acquire the popular trading app, Its share price closed at $9.12, was up 14%.

Beyond the world of cryptocurrencies, a lot of tech startups across the globe have been experiencing a massive devaluation owing to the gloomy global economy. While the world is yet to recover from the pangs of the Coronavirus pandemic fully, the Russian invasion of Ukraine further aggravated the economic turmoil.

Amidst these, Robinhood which attained its fame during the active COVID-19 years has seen as much as three-quarters of its share price erased in the past year as brokerages particularly took a hit. While Robinhood has not declared it is struggling to keep its business running, there is evidence pointing to the fast declining rate of transactions and revenue across the board.

The first impression that suggested FTX might be interested in Robinhood came when Sam Bankman-Fried’s wholly controlled entity, Emergent Fidelity Technologies acquired a 7.6% stake in Robinhood last month, a move that sent the shares of the company soaring at the time.

FTX and its American subsidiary FTX US has been very active on the Merger & Acquisition (M&A) scene in the past year. Most of the company’s acquisitions have been centred on outfits that can further help advance its brand name as a leader in the trading and financial services sector. The most recent acquisitions include LedgerX and Embed, a regulated clearing startup.

Should the acquisition of Robinhood become a thing, the FTX exchange would have doubled its position in both the cryptocurrency ecosystem as well as the mainstream stock markets.

FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Eyes Bailing Out Jittered Crypto Miners After Inking BlockFi Deal

Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO and founder of crypto exchange FTX, revealed that he was looking at the option of making acquisitions in the limping crypto mining sector, according to a Bloomberg report.

This revelation comes after Bankman-Fried injected $250 million in capital into the troubled crypto lender BlockFi with the option of acquiring it. He noted:

“When we think about the mining industry, they do play a little bit of role in the possible contagion spread, to the extent that there are miners that were collateralizing borrows with their mining rigs. There might come along a really compelling opportunity for us — I definitely don’t want to discount that possibility.”

The crypto winter being witnessed has thrown miners into distress, and Bankman-Fried’s move is aimed at helping them endure the bear market.

Crypto miners find themselves on the receiving end because they had been borrowing for the past two years to spur expansion plans. Per the announcement:

“As much as $4 billion of loans backed by crypto-mining equipment are coming under distress as some of the most-popular machines’ value has dropped by about 50% since last November, when crypto markets peaked.”

The crypto market has been bleeding based on various reasons like tightened macroeconomic factors and various misfortunes.

For instance, the interest rate in the United States recently reached a 28-year high based on the Federal Reserve’s intention to tame runaway inflation.

Moreover, the Ukraine invasion by Russia and the shocking collapse of Terra Network’s LUNA and UST has also affected the crypto market.

Meanwhile, FTX recently turned down bailing out troubled crypto lending firm Celsius Network after scrutinizing its finances.

FTX reached this conclusion after poking a “$2 billion hole” in Celsius’ balance sheet. According to the report, FTX also found out Celsius’ situation was difficult to tackle.

FTX Still Has a Few Billion to Spare for Struggling Crypto Firms, Sam Bankman-Fried Says

FTX, a leading crypto exchange, is willing to splash a few billion to help struggling companies amid the present cryptocurrency winter, according to the exchange’s CEO and founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Bankman-Fried has recently emerged as the white knight in the crypto sector because he has been giving different digital asset platforms a lifeline by bailing them out.

For instance, he recently injected $250 million in capital into the troubled crypto lender BlockFi with the option of acquiring it. As a result, BlockFi CEO Zac Prince revealed that the company was on track to bolster its balance sheet and general platform strength.

Various firms have found themselves on the receiving end with the crypto market experiencing a bloodbath based on tightened macroeconomic factors.

FTX has been getting requests for help from different companies. “We’re starting to get a few more companies reaching out to us,” Bankman-Fried said.

Through his crypto-trading firm Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried also rescued cryptocurrency brokerage firm, Voyager through a $200 million loan in June.

The FTX CEO acknowledged that the objective of the bailouts was to eliminate panic in the crypto ecosystem and protect investor assets. He pointed out:

“Having trust with consumers that things will work as advertised is incredibly important and if broken is incredibly hard to get back.”

This revelation comes days after Bankman-Fried acknowledged that he was willing to bailout jittered crypto miners who had been borrowing for the past two years to spur expansion plans, Blockchain.News reported.

Unforeseen circumstances like the Ukraine invasion of Russia and the collapse of LUNA and UST tokens have triggered a downtrend in the crypto market, whose value has dropped to less than $1 trillion from nearly $3 trillion recorded in November last year.

Furthermore, Bitcoin (BTC) has lost at least 70% of its value from the all-time high (ATH) price of $69K recorded in November 2021.

Therefore, Bankman-Fried’s bailout plans are a welcome move in the crypto sector because they are reigniting the fire.