May 1, 2019 — FTX Was Founded

FTX was one of the most unusual IT companies in history. It stood out for its incredibly fast rise: its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, became a billionaire in less than two years after the company was founded. It stood out for its advanced and versatile crypto trading tools, some of which appeared there for the first time. It stood out for the people who ran it — a group of young, ambitious professionals living together in a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas. And it also stood out for its sudden and massive collapse, which unfolded over just a few days, wiping out billions of dollars belonging to investors and users and leading to criminal charges against the company’s leadership.

FTX was registered in May 2019 and filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022. Just three and a half years later.

From the very beginning, the company offered powerful tools for crypto trading: derivatives, futures, tokenized stocks, and more. The exchange provided a clean interface and fast execution of trades, attracting millions of users and investors who bought and sold cryptocurrencies hoping to profit.

Unfortunately, the company’s leadership used customer funds without consent for their own purposes and investments. After a series of failed bets, the company lost its clients’ money. Once this became public, users rushed to withdraw their funds, but FTX did not have enough liquidity to cover the withdrawals.

Today, some of FTX’s executives, including its founder Sam Bankman-Fried, are in prison. Some have already been released. In 2024, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on fraud charges.