Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX, claimed in an interview with NPR that his exchange had a “responsibility” to support struggling cryptocurrency businesses in times of need.
Although FTX had nothing to do with the current market’s predicament, Bankman-Fried stated,
“I do feel like we have a responsibility to seriously consider stepping in, even if it is at a loss to ourselves, to stem contagion.”
Bankman-Fried thinks that helping each other in these dire circumstances would be healthy for the industry and the long run.
According to the 30-year-old billionaire, FTX’s acquisition of the Japanese Exchange Liquid is one way how the firm is helping failing businesses. When hackers attacked the Japanese crypto exchange last year and stole about $100 million worth of cryptocurrency, FTX stepped in to save the company with finance totaling USD 120 million. Soon after that, it announced ambitions to purchase the exchange.
FTX’s actions could be read as an extensive plan to expand into new territories. FTX has been expanding its reach for some time now. The exchange recently agreed to purchase Canada-based trading platform Bitvo. The exchange’s helping hand could be another way of scaling up its businesses. Moreover, the present scenario provides the perfect opportunity to undertake such an initiative.
The crypto industry is going through one of its most violent crashes, and the FTX chief claims that the Federal Reserve is to blame for the stunning collapse in cryptocurrency prices. According to Bankman-Fried, perceptions of risk have been revised due to the Fed’s aggressive interest rate increases to combat excessive inflation. But that being said, failing businesses make easy targets for the young billionaire.
Over the weekend Bitcoin’s price fell to sub-$18,000 levels, below its 2017 peak. The original cryptocurrency has now partially rebounded, but it is still worth less than half of what it did at the end of last year.
At press time, FTX’s native token FTT was trading at $25.18, up by 7% in the last 24 hours.