The problems at FTX have had a huge impact on the crypto market, and unfortunately it is still not clear exactly how the fork is in the stem. In any case, it seems that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (aka ‘SBF’) still has a few things to explain. For example, he would have tried to destabilize the crypto market to save FTX.
SBF tried to crash stablecoins
SBF would according to The Wall Street Journal had chat conversations with Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”). Binance’s CEO insisted SBF on this to stop trying to destabilize the crypto market. Stablecoins were the pivot in this. “Stop trying to break the link between stablecoins and the underlying and stop doing anything at all. Stop now, don’t cause more damage,” CZ wrote to the former FTX CEO.
With this he would mainly target Tethers USDT. This stablecoin is the backbone of the crypto industry. Many exchanges are largely dependent on the liquidity that this token offers. In fact, on some exchanges, this is the only stablecoin with crypto trading pairs. If the token collapsed, many exchanges would have a big problem.
This conversation would have taken place in a Signal chat group called ‘Exchange coordination’. The bizarre thing about this is that Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell and Tether CTO Paolo Ardoino are also members of this group.
Binance distanced itself from FTX
The conversation was said to have taken place a day after Binance’s announcement that it would not bailout FTX after all. Officially was the reason for this that it has done additional research into the financial situation of FTX, as well as that the bankrupt exchange would not have handled customer money properly.
Apparently, Binance’s CEO had discovered that Bankman-Fried was also manipulating stablecoins. Whether it only concerns Tether or whether other stablecoins are also involved is not clear. Recently, Chanpeng Zhao even called SBF on Twitter one of the biggest fraudsters ever. He also believes that the industry has become healthier as a result of the FTX crash.