There’s utter chaos in the crypto space, owing to the collapse of well-established crypto exchange FTX. Earlier this month, Binance signed a non-binding agreement to bail out the beleaguered company. However, right after, it backed out by stating that the issues were beyond its control or ability to help.
The Co-Founder and CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, recently criticized the stepped-down CEO of bankrupt exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried. At the the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit on Thursday, Zhao was asked to opine on a tweet posted by SBF in which he was obscurely referred to as a “sparring partner.”
Also Read: FTX Founder Says “F**k Regulators”, Lauds Them on Twitter Later
SBF should have been working on other things: CZ
Commenting on the same, Zhao said,
“When he tweets about a sparring partner, his house is burning and all this is happening, he’s losing focus... That day when he tweeted that, he should have been working on other things. He should not be writing tweets.”
He added,
“… he never told me I was his sparring partner. I’m actually not sure if that tweet was aimed at me or us (Binance).“
The Binance executive further asserted that “only a psychopath can write that tweet” and that he never viewed other exchanges as direct competitors. More so, because crypto was still in its nascent stage. Elaborating on the same, he said,
“We haven’t even reached 1% adoption. We can grow the industry 100x… We never view other exchanges as sparring partners or competition—it’s not a boxing match.”
Clearing the air further, Zhao said that Bankman-Fried was the one who approached him when FTX was on the verge of collapse. He added, that the knew that Bankman-Fried was “desperate” when he came to him.
When SBF initially reached out to CZ, the latter thought he was going to ask for an OTC deal to buy the FTT tokens to silence the noise in the market. Nevertheless, in the call, the former FTX chief “very quickly alluded that they’re in big trouble, and they’re looking for a buyout.” Zhao added,
“It didn’t take us very long to figure out there were way bigger problems [at FTX] than we imagined.”