FTX Plans To Raise Capital For Acquisitions
- Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX crypto exchange has confirmed that his firm is actively in talks to raise fresh capital amidst the current bearish market.
- The capital will be used for acquisition deals and SBF confirmed that the crypto firm is no more interested in bailing out troubled firms.
- As per internal documents, the US arm of the exchange, FTX US is also looking to raise money at a valuation of $8 billion.
The CEO and founder of the leading crypto exchange, FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has confirmed that his firm is actively in talks with many firms regarding potential deals and that there are plans to raise fresh capital amidst the current bearish market. A major goal for raising new capital is to strike acquisition deals, as the crypto billionaire believes that a bearish market presents an opportunity for the acquisition of crypto firms at lower valuations.
Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF in the world of crypto, was present at The Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference on Tuesday wherein he confirmed the fact that the talks of raising money are currently underway. However, it is also crucial to note that there has been a strong decline in the interest shown by venture capital firms in the blockchain and crypto space owing to the significant market downturn.
“We don’t see that much of a point in going out and trying to make an acquisition to try and get highly-engaged crypto traders. Those are people who know who we are,” Bankman-Fried said. “What we would be looking at more would be on the retail side.”
The goal behind raising fresh capital for FTX is also to attract the attention of retail investors to the crypto platform. SBF believes that the adoption of crypto and blockchain among the retail segment has been quire slow and therefore, he aims to improve the number of such users on crypto exchange using the fresh capital from potential investors in FTX.
At the conference, the founder of FTX also joked about creating a cryptocurrency that will be based on cats, referencing to the emergence of various dog meme-based coins like Shiba Inu (SHIB), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Floki Inu (FLOKI). These digital currencies rallied in 2021 during the crypto market explosion owning to the influence of Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who recently decided to purchase Twitter with aid from FTX rival Binance and Squoia Capital.
SBF also stated that his main goal would not in bailing out failed crypto platforms like Voyager Digital whose assets the firm recently acquire. The billionaire also confirmed that the exchange has been performing quite well as compared to its competitor Coinbase although the former has only a fraction of the latter’s users.
It was earlier reported that FTX will raise money at a valuation of $32 billion while currently, the US arm of the crypto exchange is also looking to raise money at a valuation of $8 billion, as per internal documents seen by WSJ.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
