A few days ago, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried accepted an exclusive interview with the program "CNN: First Move" that specializes in reporting on global business, economy and finance. This interview talked about the recent developments in the encryption market, market rumors of FTX acquisitions and FTX's own expansion plans .
Talking about the recent situation of the encryption market, SBF believes that the encryption market is developing towards a healthy situation. Over the past two years, some institutions and capital have developed excessively. Now the market is liquidating these excessive leverage and weeding out companies with capital adequacy problems. This is healthy for the market.
Recently, the lending platform BlockFi has obtained FTX's US$250 million revolving credit line, and SBF has previously expressed its willingness to lend money to other companies, setting a stop loss line for this liquidation crisis. Regarding the standard of FTX aiding encryption companies, SBF stated noncommittally that lending money to these companies is not doing charity, so it must be carefully evaluated. FTX's criteria is to look for companies that are "doing business well." These companies only have temporary liquidity problems, so as long as some loans are provided, users of these companies can be protected and systemic crises can be prevented in advance.
At the same time, SBF also clarified some market rumors. It said that in addition to the good health of the company, the most important thing is to protect the users of these good companies, so the mining machine/mining industry is not considered by FTX. No users in this field need to be protected, because everyone can buy mining machines to fill these computing power. This is not an area with systemic risks.
When the host asked: "Will you take advantage of the low point to acquire other companies? Like Coinbase?"
SBF denied rumors of acquiring Coinbase. According to official SEC documents, SBF purchased 56 million shares of Robinhood in May, becoming the company's third largest shareholder. SBF clarified that this is just a pure investment. He respects Robinhood founder Vlad Tenev and the entire team, and there is no active discussion on the acquisition issue, but he does not deny that there will be other opportunities.
SBF pointed out that the current operating conditions of FTX are very good, so whether it is Robinhood or other companies, there is no need to rashly acquire and put themselves in an unfamiliar operating environment, but he also expressed that he is willing to cooperate with different companies.
In addition, during the period of market turmoil, the financial status of FTX is also a matter of great concern to the industry. This period is also a time when profitability can be used to distinguish good companies, ordinary companies, and bad companies.
SBF said that FTX has been profitable for several consecutive quarters, including the last few quarters. He believes that the key lies in "steady expansion". Expansion is undoubtedly a risky decision, and it will put itself in a passive and vulnerable situation. So unless SBF and his team find a good opportunity and invest in the way they like, they will not expand easily.
SBF specifically mentioned the expansion of personnel. He said before that although expansion in a bull market is reasonable, after research, he found that when a company expands at a high speed, it will make it difficult to coordinate between departments, and it will also lower the employment standards. Communication sucks, and you end up with no one to communicate, even with rewards.
I believe that under the leadership of SBF, FTX will achieve more impressive achievements in the future, and embark on a wider and farther development path in the encryption market, so as to achieve its own steady development.