Binance CEO tells employees he didn't 'master plan' FTX demise

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said connected Wednesday that helium "did not maestro plan" the illness of rival crypto speech FTX.

In an email to employees that helium made public, Zhao said FTX going down "is not bully for anyone successful the industry" and that employees should not "view it arsenic a triumph for us."

The memo comes a time aft Zhao announced that Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency firm, had reached a non-binding deal with Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX to bargain the exchange's non-U.S. businesses for an undisclosed amount, rescuing the institution from a liquidity crisis. Earlier this year, FTX was valued astatine $32 cardinal by backstage investors.

Since quality broke of the agreement, FTX's autochthonal token FTT has plummeted to $3.50, down from astir $25 a week ago. Zhao contributed to the decline, erstwhile helium announced publically implicit the play that Binance was selling its FTT holdings.

Zhao said successful the memo that Binance employees should not bargain oregon merchantability FTT.

"DO NOT commercialized FTT tokens," Zhao wrote successful the letter. "If you person a bag, you person a bag. DO NOT bargain oregon sell."

Zhao added that idiosyncratic assurance is severely shaken, and that helium expected the onslaught of regulatory scrutiny of exchanges to emergence due to the fact that of the turmoil. FTX did not respond to CNBC's aggregate requests for comment.

Investors turned bearish connected integer assets this twelvemonth amid a spate of failures, but FTX is the biggest domino to fall, and its descent came with shocking speed.

Bitcoin dropped much than 7% Wednesday, trading beneath $17,000, and the wide marketplace headdress of tokens is down to $840 billion, the lowest successful years.

Zhao said Binance plans to importantly summation its transparency, impervious of reserves and security funds.

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