Industry-leading cryptocurrency platform Binance intends to buy struggling major competitor FTX, the Binance executive announced on Twitter on Tuesday.
"We intend to fully acquire FTX," said Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance.
His counterpart at FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, also assures on Twitter that he has "an agreement on a strategic transaction with Binance for FTX".
This afternoon, FTX asked for our help.
There is a significant liquidity crunch.
To protect users, we signed a non-binding LOI, intending to fully acquire https://t.co/BGtFlCmLXB and help cover the liquidity crunch.
We will be conducting a full DD in the coming days.
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) November 8, 2022
If Sam Bankman-Fried does not give more details on the nature of the transaction, he assures that it does not change anything “for the moment” for the American branch of FTX.
According to cryptocurrency and platform benchmarking site Coingecko, trading volumes on Binance are over $14 billion in the past 24 hours, while fourth-ranked FTX has seen nearly $2 billion in trades. .
Setbacks for FTX powered… by Binance
No details on the value of the transaction were shared.
It comes after a few difficult days for FTX, whose setbacks were fueled by Changpeng Zhao himself.
A few days after the publication of an article by the specialized media Coindesk on the massive investments of another company of Sam Bankman-Fried in the cryptocurrency specific to FTX, the FTX Token (FTT), Changpeng Zhao had announced to sell its reserves of FTT , which Binance held as part of a capital outflow from FTX.
Changpeng Zhao had compared the lack of diversification of the group with the painful memory of Luna, this foundation whose cryptocurrency terra had collapsed in May and whose founder is now wanted by Interpol.
“Liquidating our position in FTT is just a way to manage the risk and learn from Luna,” Changpeng Zhao then said on Twitter, who also assured: “We are not going to help people who lobby against d 'other industry players behind their backs'.
Sam Bankman-Fried then called the accusations "unfounded rumors".
On the contrary, he now tempers the rivalry between the two platforms on Twitter: "I know that there have been rumors in the media about a conflict between our two trading platforms, however Binance has repeatedly shown its desire to building a decentralized global economy and working on industry relations with regulators.
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