FTX Exchange’s Native Token Plummets Below $22 as Binance-led Selling Continues

FTT has smashed through $22, a price many saw as the floor amid a new feud between industry titans.

The proprietary token of crypto exchange FTX has fallen 22% in the past 24 hours, following a sell-off by Binance. 

The token’s current price sits at around $17.51, a dramatic 79% drop from its all-time high of $84.18 around a year ago, according to data from CoinGecko. FTT gives FTX users and holders discounts on their trading fees and referral commissions.

The dramatic price drop may be linked to reports originally released by CoinDesk, which show that Alameda, a trading firm founded by Bankman-Fried, has a huge amount of FTT tokens on its books. 

According to the document, Alameda reportedly has $14.6 billion of assets as of June 30, which includes $3.66 billion of “unlocked FTT” and $2.16 billion of “FTT collateral.”

Alameda’s CEO Caroline Ellison, added that the report did not reflect another $10 billion in assets. 

Binance begins FTT sell-off

Due to the “recent revelations that have came to light” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told his 7.3 million Twitter followers that “we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books.”

Binance claims to have received roughly $2.1 billion USD equivalent in cash (BUSD and FTT) when it sold its stake in FTX last year. The exact split between BUSD and FTT was not disclosed. 

Attempting to limit the liquidation’s impact on the market, Alameda CEO Caroline Elison reached out to Binance on Twitter, offering to buy the tokens for $22. 

The offer was then refused by Zhao, who said, “I think we will stay in the free market,” contrary to claims by the CEO that Binance will try to manage the sell-off “in a way that minimizes market impact.”

Crypto market trembles

It’s not just FTT’s price that may have been impacted by the recent reports around Alameda’s balance book. 

Many of the major currencies have plummeted in the past 24 hours, with Ethereum and Bitcoin also dropping 5.1% and 4.4%, respectively, as per CoinGecko data. 

Despite the potential hefty impact on FTT, the Binance CEO insists that the sell-off was not “a move against a competitor” and that “every time a project publicly fails, it hurts every user and every platform.”