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A crypto billionaire has seen his wealth drop an impressive 94 percent, setting a record for the most amount of money lost in a single day, according to Bloomberg.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Earlier this week, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was worth around $17 billion. After what could be described as a particularly rough few days, he was left with "only" $1 billion by the time Tuesday came around. The fall in his wealth was due to a potential sale of the company he had managed since 2019.
On Tuesday, Bankman-Fried announced that FTX would be sold to a rival cryptocurrency exchange Binance. FTX had been suffering from a severe "liquidity crunch", on top of which speculation about the state of the company had led to investment withdrawals of around $6 billion between the weekend and Tuesday. The bailout deal did not go through, however, after Binance's chief executive Changpeng "CZ" Zhao cited "the discretion to pull out from the deal at any time"
"Due to recent revelations that have come to light," he added, "we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT [the FTX digital currency] on our books."
Following the announcement, the BBC reports that FTT lost almost 80 percent of its value compared to last week.
Bankman-Fried assured remaining FTX customers that their assets would be safe.
"Our teams are working on clearing out the withdrawal backlog as is," he tweeted. "This will clear out liquidity crunches; all assets will be covered 1:1."
He added that it would take some time to settle, but "the important thing is that customers are protected". For his staff, he had a simpler message.
"I’m sorry,” Bankman-Fried told his employees on Tuesday, according to Reuters. “I f*cked up.”
