Greed is a Hell of a Drug: The Unnecessary Risk Taking & Collapse of FTX
FTX — which, just more than one week ago was the world’s second largest cryptocurrency exchange, is now bankrupt. The main face of the exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), has now gone silent — and his exact whereabouts are now in question. Current reports are indicating that more than $8 billion USD is unaccounted for. Users who held their digital assets on the exchange have effectively been 100% wiped out. Without actual assets backing up those balances being displayed, the “wealth” that each individual believed they held on the platform ended up being nothing but a fancy entry on a glorified excel table.
All individuals across the industry have been impacted — regardless of whether or not they were actual users of the FTX product. Of course, some have lost substantially more than others — but the broken confidence resulting in the implosion of this crypto behemoth has more than rattled markets. Bitcoin values fell below $16k for the first time since the end of 2020, while ETH was less than $100 away from falling below $1k.
While the markets have bounced back a bit since then, it is too early to survey the aftermath of the damage which has been done — especially when news and rumors that other exchanges, investors, and the like may all have been holding meaningful balances on the same exchange.
