How Did FTX Become the Opposite of What It Wanted to Be?

The FTX exchange, according to past testimony provided by its now disgraced founder and chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried, was initially designed as a way to merge both the crypto space and the traditional financial space together.

FTX Started with Good Intentions

In May of 2022, before the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture, SBF said the following:

[FTX] was established to build a digital asset trading platform and exchange with a better user experience, customer protection, equitable access, and innovative products, and to provide a trading platform robust enough for professional trading firms and intuitive enough for first time users… FTX has aimed to combine the best practices of the traditional financial system with the best form [of] the digital asset ecosystem.

He then went on to explain the diversity of the company’s workforce and how much his firm was willing to cooperate with others. He said:

We are proud of our workforce at FTX and believe that one of our key strengths is a culture of mutual respect and cooperation. This type of culture is borne from the diversity of our team, which necessitates a spirit of empathy, understanding, and humility. These traits in our workforce are good for business and are much of the reason we have been successful at understanding our customers and their needs and executing on products that meet their needs. FTX has employees all over the world with diverse ethnic backgrounds, and 60 percent of women in our workforce are in senior management positions. [Most of] our global leadership comes from diverse backgrounds.

He also commented that FTX was devoted to “giving back” to the community and that he was looking to make a difference in people’s lives:

FTX is committed to improving the lives not just of our customers through superior products, but also the lives of those in the broader global community. Toward this end, FTX created the FTX Foundation, founded with the goal of donating to the world’s most effective charities. At minimum, one percent of net fees from FTX transactions are donated to the foundation. Additionally, FTX’s founders have pledged to donate the majority of what they make.

Keeping Things Stable

Lastly, he discussed the firm’s dedication to “carbon neutrality” and said FTX wanted to ensure the crypto space was clean for the environment and thus could be around for future generations to enjoy:

FTX Climate is a comprehensive initiative to make FTX carbon neutral, support important environmental projects, and fund transformational research on the most impactful solutions to climate change. FTX plans to spend at least $1 million annually through FTX Climate. FTX has endeavored to take ownership of our portion of the environmental costs of mining associated with public blockchains and has purchased carbon offsets to neutralize those costs in addition to funding research.

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