Another drama in the world of cryptocurrencies.

There will be a lot of “_” in this story. 2022 is so exciting! Exactly half a year has passed since the previous mass crypto pony hunting. I mean that story with LUNA token, Celsius, and so on, and today we again have something to gossip about.

In two sentences, it's a great friendship story, where one famous crypto-billionaire screwed another famous crypto-billionaire and planned to get his crypto exchange on a turn-key basis for a fifth of its cost.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced its intention to acquire the FTX exchange in a strategic deal. According to his words, FTX approached them "for help" due to the company's liquidity shortage.

The injured party is Sam Bankman-Fried, a crypto-billionaire and the richest from the Forbes list of 30 billionaires under 30. I could joke that it's not the same Sam as before, but at least two of those Sames, but I'm not going to do that.

Sam is an MIT graduate and former Wall Street trader. He got rich in cryptocurrencies very quickly and founded the crypto trading platform FTX and the trading firm Alameda Research. At its peak, he managed nearly $15 billion in assets.

But how did he manage to become a billionaire before he was 30? The scheme is very simple.

First, you create a token.

Then inflate the token's value by collecting interest and distributing it to members. This alleged “profit” from distribution and volume is displayed on the balance of the FTX company. After that, the company shows “profits” to investors and raises dough by selling shares or raising loans. And thereby inflating the value of the FTX Token (FTT) again.

I won't go into detail about how Sam disposed of that money. Let's believe the claims that he invested wisely in a broadly diversified portfolio of crypto-assets:

With part of the money he bought from the cybersports organization TSM (Team SoloMid), it is rather an impulse purchase, quenching the dopamine hunger of a billionaire.

This mill would keep turning.

And here is the time for the second hero of this drama - Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ (when I see this acronym, I can't stop thinking about the Czech Republic). CZ is the founder of the Binance crypto exchange and the richest crypto billionaire on the planet, his net worth is estimated by Forbes at $65 billion.

By the way CZ was an early investor in the FTX business and received tokens (coins) of the exchange (FTT) for part of his investment.

So we have Sam, whose exchange grew to be the top 3 crypto exchange in the world, and a huge amount of his main asset, FTT tokens, was in the hands of a fellow owner of the top 1 exchange in the world. Knowing it makes my hands sweat.

Personally, I think Sem said too much. He act like a star and became brazen enough to pin on Binance to all sorts of regulators. and CZ decided to teach him a lesson.

On November 6, an analyst Lookonchain posted on Twitter that he noticed a giant whale transferred 23M $FTT($530M) to Binance the day before. Somebody transferred coins from a cold wallet to the Binance exchange. Only one person (except for Alameda Research itself - the brainchild of Sam) had such an extensive share, so there could be no doubt. It was CZ. Later he confirmed on Twitter that he decided to sell FTT. The price of $FTT began to decrease gradually, from $25.4 to $22.82, a decrease of 10%.

And he did it because there were rumors that Alameda Research, which had bought all kinds of shitcoin, had holes in their balance. Danger hung in the air.

On November 8, the coin dropped in value by 76%, and at one point, the drop was 85%.

Following the splendid drop, users poured in droves, withdrawing their hard-earned money from FTX (and those who were savvy and following what was going on started doing it a couple of days in advance).

The worst thing for any financial company, be it a traditional bank or an advanced cryptocurrency exchange, is when everyone decides to withdraw their money all at once. That can kill even the healthiest, risk-conscious financial institution, even more so for noobs investing in a broadly diversified portfolio of dozens of shitcoins. And then the whole crypto market started to fall to the side like a chain from this situation (Bitcoin lay to rest at -10% for a day, but all more minor shit fell by 25% too). It creates a snowball effect. In addition, Alameda Research's collateral was 50% of FTT token, which is questionable, to put it mildly, and no one needs it at all with minimal liquidity, which killed it in the future.

And the catharsis comes from CZ, the Savior. As FTX is in crisis, members want to take their money and can't get it out - he could help by buying FTX.

The outcome is ahead of us. The FTT token will still shake like a woman in labor. CZ now has all the trumps in hand and will be able to dictate the terms of the deal. On the other hand, all sorts of unexpected characters with a couple of billions to spare can get involved in this story.

The topic will gain momentum, and I think the outcome will be before the end of the year. Stock up on popcorn if you have FTT token - sedatives, and always DYOR.