(Reuters) – FTX was commencing bankruptcy proceedings in the United States and its Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned, the crypto exchange said on Friday, in a spectacular collapse that has sent shivers through the industry.
Here is a history of FTX since its foundation in 2019:
2019:
May – Former Wall Street trader Sam Bankman-Fried and ex-Google employee Gary Wang founded FTX, the owner and operator of FTX.COM cryptocurrency exchange.
2021:
July – A $900 million funding round valued FTX at $18 billion.
September – FTX signed a sponsorship deal with Mercedes’ Formula 1 team.
October – FTX raised capital at a valuation of $25 billion from investors including Singapore’s Temasek and Tiger Global.
2022:
Jan. 27 – FTX’s U.S. arm said it was valued at $8 billion after raising $400 million in its first funding round from investors including SoftBank and Temasek.
Jan. 31 – FTX raised $400 million from investors including SoftBank at a valuation of $32 billion.
June 4 – FTX signed a reportedly $135 million sponsorship deal for naming rights of the Miami Heat’s home court.
July 1 – FTX signed a deal with an option to buy embattled crypto lender BlockFi for up to $240 million.
July 22 – FTX offered a partial bailout of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital. Voyager called it a “low-ball bid”.
Aug. 19 – A U.S. bank regulator ordered FTX to halt “false and misleading” claims it had made about whether funds at the company are insured by the government.
Nov. 2 – Crypto news website CoinDesk reported a leaked balance sheet that showed Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm, was heavily dependent on FTX’s native token, FTT. Reuters was unable to verify the report.
Nov. 6 – Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said his firm would liquidate its holdings of FTT due to unspecified “recent revelations”.
Nov. 7 – Bankman-Fried said “FTX is fine. Assets are fine”.
Nov. 8 – Binance said it was planning a deal to acquire FTX.
Nov. 9 – Binance decided against pursuing a nonbinding agreement to bail out FTX.
Nov. 10 – FTX suspended on-boarding of new clients as well as withdrawals until further notice
Nov. 10 – Bankman-Fried told staff in a memo that he was seeking a capital raising and had held talks with Justin Sun, founder of the crypto token Tron.
Nov. 10 – Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried is seeking to put together a rescue package of up to $9.4 billion for FTX.
Nov. 11 – FTX starts voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States, along with its U.S. unit, crypto trading firm Alameda Research and nearly 130 other affiliates. Bankman-Fried resigns as CEO.
Nov. 12 – Reuters reported at least $1 billion of customer funds have vanished from FTX.
Nov. 12 – FTX said it had detected unauthorized transactions. Blockchain analytics firms estimated outflows between $473-659 million in “suspicious circumstances”.
Nov. 13 – Bahamas securities regulator launched a probe over collapse of FTX.
Here is a list of FTX’s investors since 2019, according to private market data provider, PitchBook.
2019 Tiger Global Management, Insight Partners, SoftBank
Inves Investment Advisors, Temasek, Telstra Ventures,
tors Teachers Venture Growth, Steadview Capital Management,
Redline DAO, Paradigm, New Enterprise Associates,
Lightspeed Ventures, 500 Global, Binance Labs,
Consensus Lab, FBG Capital, Galois Capital, Greylock
Capital Management, Lemniscap, Race Capital, IVP, HOF
Capital
2020 Bitscale Capital, BR Capital, Evangelion Capital,
Inves Exnetwork Capital, Genblock Capital, Insignius
tors Capital, Pantera Capital
2021 BlackRock, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Samsung NEXT
Inves Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Base10
tors Partners, Astronaut Capital, AGE Crypto, Vetamer
Capital, Senator Investment Group, Sea Capital,
Paradigm, Meritech Capital Partners, ICONIQ Growth,
Third Point Ventures, Thoma Bravo, Kevin O’Leary,
Willoughby Capital, Digital Currency Group, Third
Point, Tribe Capital, Bond Capital, Standard
Investments, Circle , Ribbit Capital, Multicoin
Capital, Mayfield, 6ixth Event, Abstract Ventures,
Alan Howard, Altimeter Capital Management, Bond,
Schoeneck & King, DHVC, Israel Englander, Mark VC
2022 Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Ontario Teachers
Inves Pension Plan, K5 Global, MiH Ventures, Mint Ventures,
tors NKB Ventures, Signum Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Lux
Capital, Fenrir, Claritas Capital, Hard Yaka, Early
Capital Group, Chapter One Ventures, One Block
Capital, Chainfund Capital, A’Z Angels, Allied
Investors Group, ArkStream Capital
(Compiled by Harish Sridharan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sam Holmes, Shri Navaratnam, Sriraj Kalluvila)
