FTX CEO: crypto is ‘coming back’
Sam Bankman-Fried believes crypto are linked to the macro-economic environment
Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of FTX, the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, has said that he thinks crypto is “coming back” after the current bear market.
The FTX CEO made his comments in an interview with Bloomberg UK.
Bankman-Fried explained that a lot of what is happening in crypto is linked to the macro-economic environment, “if we see the market crash again, we will see crypto crash along with it”.
However, the same can be said for a recovery in the markets as this he believes will also lead to a crypto recovery.
The positives of the crypto winter
Bankman-Fried said the crypto winter has “flushed out all lot of the things that needed to be flushed out in the crypto space anyway.”
He said he did not get “super nervous” in May 2022 when the crypto market started to see a “meltdown”.
Bankman-Fried admitted that it was a “rocky road for the industry” and some businesses “did blow up when Bitcoin (BTC) hit $20k”.
Celsius Network, a decentralised finance (DeFi) platform, filed for bankruptcy in July, Three Arrows Capital, (3AC) the cryptocurrency hedge fund, began liquidation actions in July ,and Voyager Digital, the cryptocurrency lender, filed for bankruptcy around the same time.
The FTX CEO said that if the market saw BTC drop even further to $10,000 (£8,636), “I think you would see another round of pain for the industry that would potentially be more of a medium to long-term problem.”
FTX revenue up 1,000%
Despite the current bear market, FTX enjoyed a successful 2021. In August 2022 it was revealed the company saw its revenue increase by more than 1,000% during that year.
The crypto company’s revenue jumped from $89m (£77m) in 2020 to $1.02bn (£885m) in 2021.
Additionally, FTX’s operating income was $272m (£236m), against $14m in 2020, and its net income rose from $17m in 2020 to $388m (£335m) in 2021.
