NEW YORK (AP) – Cryptocurrency prices plunged for a second-straight day after crypto exchange Binance said it was pulling out of a deal to purchase failing rival FTX Trading.
Bitcoin sank to a two-year low after Binance confirmed earlier rumours and news reports that it was ready to back out of the FTX deal, struck between the CEOs of the two exchanges on Tuesday. The deal was pending Binance’s due diligence on FTX’s balance sheet.
After an initial review, Binance said in a statement it had significant concerns that convinced it to back out of the deal.
“In the beginning, our hope was to be able to support FTX’s customers to provide liquidity, but the issues are beyond our control or ability to help,” Binance said in a statement.
The price of bitcoin plunged over 13 per cent to USD15,840, according to CoinDesk, its lowest level since November 2020. It had been above USD20,000 earlier in the week. The other major cryptocurrency, Ethereum, dropped 13 per cent.
FTX agreed to sell itself to Binance after experiencing the cryptocurrency equivalent of a bank run. Customers fled the exchange after becoming concerned about whether FTX had sufficient capital. The sudden sale was a shocking turn of events for FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who was hailed as somewhat of a saviour earlier this year when he helped shore up a number of cryptocurrency companies that ran into financial trouble.
FTX’s own crypto token, known as FTT, plunged more than 50 per cent on the reports. The token, now worth around USD2.50, was worth 10 times that amount only a week ago.
Many of crypto investors’ concerns centred on whether the balance sheet of an affiliated company of FTX known as Alameda Research was saturated with increasingly worthless FTT tokens, whose total value would not exceed the exchange’s liabilities, effectively making FTX insolvent.