In Brief:
- FTX U.S valuation reached $8 billion after $400 million fundraising.
- The investors in the fundraising round included Temasek, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2.
- The investment made FTX one of the world’s most valuable private crypto firms.
American-based crypto exchange FTX US fetched $400 million in its first external fundraising round, which added it to the world’s largest private crypto firms with an $8 billion valuation.
The fundraising round included Temasek, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board, and SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2. Brett Harrison, President of FTX U.S unveiled that the fund will be utilized for the expansion of its offerings and services.
The FTX U.S valuation shows that many crypto investors and entrepreneurs are still confident about digital assets and crypto firms, even after a sharp downfall in leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.
After showing a new peak, last year, Bitcoin and Ethereum sheared to almost halves in price. At the time of writing, Bitcoin and Ethereum revolve around $36,007 and $2,417 respectively.
Many crypto experts affirm that the sharp fall in prominent cryptocurrencies can lead to “crypto winter”, a term that refers to a sharp slump.
Brett Harrison stated that the market turbulence in crypto shows its “volatile asset class.”
“Volatility cuts both ways,” he said. “With all of the large upturns that we’ve seen in crypto, we have to expect that there are going to be downturns as well. And we’re definitely in that period right now.”
However, Harrison made clear that the downfall momentum is “not specific to crypto” as the stock market has also seen the bottom many times in history.
FTX was founded by 29-year-old young entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried in 2019. FTX U.S. was established in May 2020 with the aim of independent trading operation from the main exchange.
In 2021, FTX U.S crypto trading volume grew almost sevenfold and generated the record-breaking daily volume in November with $800 million. At present, it has nearly 1.2 million active users on the platform.
FTX U.S is confident about the current valuation that it will provide an edge over its competitors such as Coinbase and Robinhood. The exchange is also trying to expand its services into derivatives services. To achieve this goal FTX U.S has acquired crypto derivatives and futures exchanges, Ledger X.
