The rival, Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of a bigger crypto exchange called Binance, agreed to bail out FTX. But FTX’s future grew murkier on Wednesday when Binance abruptly said the deal was off. Without much explanation, the company said in a statement that its executives changed their minds because of regulatory concerns and issues with “corporate due diligence.”
The deal’s collapse has sent shudders through the entire crypto industry. The uncertainty around the future of FTX has become an existential threat to young crypto businesses as they struggle to convince Wall Street, regulators and mainstream consumers that they are trustworthy. As news spread of FTX’s collapse, crypto markets took a battering, with Bitcoin and Ether both dropping more than 20 percent in value since Tuesday.
Source: The Fall of FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Puts Crypto Industry on Edge – The New York Times
