When did it go from grim to hopeless for Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire? Many answers have been offered. One decidedly narrow one says it was the moment his second-in-command went on Twitter trying to prevent a plunge in the token FTT.
While the overall collapse was caused by much larger forces — decisions that left Bankman-Fried’s businesses resting precariously on the coin, exposed to Binance chief Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao’s pledge to sell it — zero hour came when Caroline Ellison offered to buy it all from CZ at a below-market price. That’s when market liquidity evaporated in an asset FTX had valued at around $5 billion a week earlier.
The analysis, compiled by risk-modeling firm Gauntlet, doesn’t purport to be a broad accounting of why FTX fell — mismanagement, deceit and a reported decision to use exchange funds to support Alameda Research stand as much bigger sins. But for traders interested in an hourly accounting on when the point of no return was reached, the details point to Ellison’s tweet.