The head of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, published a letter to the employees of the bitcoin exchange, in which he commented on the FTX crisis and urged them to refrain from trading utility tokens of FTT’s competitor.
In the spirit of transparency, might as well share the actual note, sent to all Binance team globally a few hours ago. — CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 9, 2022
According to him, Binance did not plan anything like this. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried called Zhao about a day ago. Prior to this, the CEO of Binance allegedly had a weak idea of the competitor’s position.
“I want to remind everyone: do not trade FTT tokens. […] As soon as I finished talking to Sam Bankman-Freed yesterday, I asked our team to stop selling as an organization,” Zhao wrote.
He also declined to comment on the deal publicly or internally and spoke about “a good team that will handle this.”
“The fall of FTX is bad for everyone in the industry. Don’t look at this as a “victory for us.” The trust of users has been seriously shaken. Regulators will check exchanges even more carefully. It will be more difficult to get licenses all over the world,” he added.
At the same time, Zhao supported thorough inspections and noted the need to increase transparency and reliability of reserves and insurance funds.
Earlier, the CEO of Binance promised to confirm the stocks of the bitcoin exchange. At the same time, the company has replenished its Fund of Safe Assets for users. Now it holds about $1 billion.
“Ignore the prices. Let’s focus on creating products that people use. It has always worked, and today is no exception,” Zhao wrote.
The bitcoin price reacted to this news by falling below the $17,000 mark.
Recall, on November 6, Zhao announced the company’s desire to get rid of FTT. Assets together with BUSD totaling ~ $2.1 billion were the result of the company’s exit from the portfolio investment in FTX.
Amid rumors of a confrontation between the two platforms, as well as concerns about the financial stability of FTX, the FTT token fell by about 30%.
On November 8, Bankman-Fried and Zhao announced a strategic partnership. It is designed to resolve the liquidity crisis and suggests a possible takeover of FTX by the Binance exchange.
