Sam Bankman-Fried of cryptocurrency exchange FTX is seeking new funds after a deal with Binance failed, says an internal memo seen by Reuters on Thursday, as he seeks to plug an $8 billion hole in his finances. .
The FTX chief executive told staff in the memo that he is seeking a capital increase and spoke with Justin Sun, creator of cryptocurrency Tron, although he did not hint at anything about its chances of success.
In the memo, Bankman-Fried said he was “leading a raise” over the next week to do right by customers and “potential new investors.”
The decision comes after he told employees on Wednesday that he was exploring all options for his company after a deal with Binance failed to materialize.
A message on the FTX website says it is not processing withdrawals or onboarding new users. This comes days after users rushed to withdraw $6 billion in assets from the platform in just 72 hours.
FTX’s native token FTT is down 90% this week. Bitcoin dropped below $16,000 for the first time since late 2020, but was back above $17,000 on Thursday.
Bloomberg reported that FTX faced a shortfall of up to $8 billion and that the company would need to declare insolvency unless it received more funding.
Source: CNN Brasil
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