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LIVE: Full Mario Nawfal And SBF (Sam Bankman-Fried) Twitter Space Interview

The Beginning of the End
Nov 2: Troubles started for the exec and his empire after crypto media CoinDesk published a controversial report highlighting critical details in the balance sheet of SBF’s trading firm Alameda Research. The article revealed that Alameda is heavily invested in FTX’s exchange’s native token, FTT.

The report raised concerns as FTX and Alameda operated as separate entities even though SBF created both firms.

The Battle of Two Crypto Giants
Nov 6: Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison dismissed concerns about the firm’s balance sheet as rumors. According to her, the Coindesk report only covered a subset of Alameda’s balance sheet. She noted that the trading firm had more than $10 billion of assets that did not reflect in the report.

A couple of hours later, FTX’s major rival Binance announced it planned to liquidate all of its remaining FTT holdings, which the company had acquired as part of its 2021 investments in FTX.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said the decision stemmed from “recent revelations that have come to light” about FTX. He later tweeted that his company would not support “people who lobby against other industry players behind their backs,” without directly naming FTX. However, speculators believe CZ was referring to FTX’s close ties with regulators and some of SBF’s controversial tweets.

Ellison quickly offered to buy back Binance’s FTT holdings for $22 per token to reduce the impact of the liquidation on the market. CZ would later reject the offer, saying his firm prefers to stay in the free market.

Zhao also confirmed the transfer of $584 million worth of FTT from an unknown wallet to Binance as part of the liquidation process.

SBF: FTX is Fine, Assets Are Fine
Nov 7: FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried continued throwing shades at CZ and Binance on Twitter after he previously called for peace and asked that CZ and others should “make love (and blockchain), not war.”

He reassured customers that FTX and assets on the exchange were fine, adding that his company had more than $1 billion in excess cash. But the next few days would reveal that nothing was ever fine with FTX, at least not users’ deposits and investors’ money.

Without mentioning Binance, SBF said in a now-deleted tweet that a competitor was going after his company with “false rumors.”

Later that day, Zhao rejected Ellison’s offer to buy back Binance FTT holdings, and the token’s price plunged 80% as investors began to sell their own.

FTX Halts Withdrawals, Binance Offers Bailout
Nov 8: Less than 24 hours after SBF tweeted that assets were fine, reports confirmed that his exchange had stopped processing users’ withdrawals. That was the first visible sign of FTX’s predicament since the fiasco started on Nov 2.

A couple of hours later, FTX saw a ray of hope as Binance came to the rescue. CZ tweeted that his exchange had signed a nonbinding agreement to purchase FTX after SBF asked for help.

The crypto market reacted positively to the news, but little did everyone know that the love wouldn’t last and the high-profile bailout would never happen.

Binance Makes U-Turn, Contagion Sets In
Nov 9: While many people were expecting CZ’s next big announcement to be the completion of the takeover, Binance made a u-turn and walked away from the deal. Zhao said his company realized FTX’s financial trouble was beyond its “control or ability to help” after conducting “corporate due diligence.”

News about Binance’s decision to back out of its FTX rescue mission sent the entire crypto market into chaos. FTT crashed further, bitcoin dropped below $16,000 for the first time since 2020, and SBF saw 95% of its net worth evaporate, losing his billionaire status.

A few hours later, the crypto industry started seeing the chain reaction from FTX’s liquidity crunch. The Solana blockchain took a significant hit, considering the role of FTX and Alameda in the Solana ecosystem. Several crypto platforms will later halt withdrawals, citing severe exposure to FTX.

Meanwhile, FTX’s legal and compliance team reportedly resigned from the exchange before Binance pulled out of the deal.

SBF Apologizes, Hunts for Investors
Nov 10: With Binance no longer an option, SBF had to look for help elsewhere, including reaching out to other rivals and crypto figures such as OKX and Tron’s founder Justin Sun.

He also apologized on crypto Twitter, where he admitted several mistakes, including failing to calculate FTX’s liquidity properly, which led to the company’s downfall.

SBF also vowed to make FTX customers whole, noting that he was doing everything possible to raise liquidity but couldn’t make promises about that. He then revealed that Alameda Research would halt trading as part of an effort to rescue FTX.

Despite claiming that FTX US, the American affiliate of FTX, was “100% liquid” and was not “financially impacted” by FTX’s liquidity crunch, the U.S. exc

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