Former head of MicroStrategy Michael Saylor recently gave his thoughts and opinions on the digital currency scam surrounding FTX, the now fallen cryptocurrency exchange that was once labeled the ultimate golden player in the space.
Michael Saylor on the FTX Collapse
His conversation began with the statement that what was happening around FTX was “tragic.” It then transitioned into a discussion of FTT, the native token of the crypto exchange. He said:
Since the supply was largely in friendly hands, they were able to manipulate the price of those tokens up through insider wash trading… Normally, the cynical bitcoiners think, ‘You know, these crypto casinos are just manipulating the price of the token up to dump it on retail,’ but [Bankman-Fried] came up with a particularly diabolical twist to the entire thing.
FTX will likely go down as one of the biggest blunders in the history of crypto. First arising in the year 2019, FTX soon developed into one of the biggest and most prominent digital currency trading platforms, giving companies like Coinbase and even Binance runs for their money. The man behind the exchange, a young 30-something named Sam Bankman-Fried, was lauded as a genius by many high-ranking players in the industry, though sadly, that reputation is fading fast.
Mid-November saw trouble begin for the digital currency exchange after it was announced that FTX was experiencing a liquidity crunch, and it needed fast cash to stay in business. From there, it turned to Binance for help, and it appeared that the larger company was going to buy out the smaller one, though this merger never occurred.
Within days, Binance issued a statement saying that it would not be purchasing the firm given that the problems FTX was facing were larger than what Binance felt it could handle. From there, Sam Bankman-Fried resigned from his post as the head executive of the firm and the company was forced into bankruptcy proceedings.
Saylor briefly described what user funds were invested in or spent on:
They proceeded to spend the money on politicians and lobbying and stadium rights and advertisements and celebrity endorsements and condos in the Bahamas, and then they traded a bunch and made a bunch of bad trades, and then they lost the money.
Bitcoin Is Still a Valid Solution
Despite all the issues that Saylor has experienced with bitcoin over the last year or so, he still feels that it could be a valid solution to what’s happening. He commented:
It means you don’t have to trust the FTXs of the world, so yeah. I am a big believer because I believe that although crypto in this case may have been the problem, bitcoin is still the solution, and [Bankman-Fried] may have made a million bitcoin maximalists with this crash.
