Lionel Laurent, Columnist

Bankman-Fried Needs a Crypto Miracle to Rescue FTX

The slump in virtual currencies will deter potential saviors of the collapsed exchange.

November 10, 2022 at 4:30 PM UTC

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist writing about the future of money and the future of Europe. Previously, he was a reporter for Reuters and Forbes.

Bitcoin, buy & sell. Recently, mostly sell.
Photographer: Andrei Pungovschi/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX was a magnet for the so-called smart money. Backers included the biggest names in finance and venture capital, from BlackRock Inc. to SoftBank Group Corp. to pension funds. Even after this summer’s crypto crash, Ontario Teachers Pension Plan described its investment in the firm as “lowest-risk” — because it was the venue where “everybody else” traded.

Now, with a shortfall of $8 billion to fill, nobody will touch FTX with a bargepole. Rival exchange Binance flirted briefly with a bailout and then walked away, arguing the uncertainty was too great. Sequoia Capital has marked the value of its $214 million stake down to zero. Assuming a value of $1 on Sam Bankman-Fried’s main businesses, as per Bloomberg News estimates, his billions have evaporated.