Binance to acquire FTX crypto exchange

on November 8, Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, signed a non-binding agreement to buy FTX.com, all to help cover the «liquidity crisis» at Sam Bankman-Fried's exchange.

This afternoon, FTX asked for our help. There is a significant liquidity crunch. To protect users, we signed a non-binding LOI, intending to fully acquire https://t.co/BGtFlCmLXB and help cover the liquidity crunch. We will be conducting a full DD in the coming days.

— CZ? Binance (@cz_binance) November 8, 2022

«In order to protect users, we have signed a letter of intent that provides for a full takeover of FTX.com. We will conduct due diligence in the coming days,» Changpeng Zhao wrote on Twitter. He clarified that Binance has the right to withdraw from the deal at any time. The head of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, confirmed the information about the strategic agreement, which should solve a number of problems.

«Our teams are working to eliminate the backlog of withdrawal requests. This will eliminate the liquidity crisis; all assets will be collateralized on a 1:1 basis. This is one of the main reasons why we turned to Binance. It may take some time. We apologizefor this,» Benkman-Fried wrote.

FTX came under pressure after Zhao said on Sunday, November 6, that Binance had decided to completely get rid of the native tokens of the FTX crypto exchange. After that, in the 24 hours following the sale on Binance, the FTX native token fell by 22%, and then by more than 17%.

It should be added that the announcement of the deal between Binance and FTX led to a temporary increase in the entire cryptocurrency market — BTC returned to above $ 20,000, the Binance Coin (BNB) token rose by 20% in the hour after the deal was announced, and the native token of the FTX exchange (FTT) rose by 25%. However, today, BTC and other assets are showing another drop — at the time of writing, the flagship cryptocurrency is trading at $ 18,315.