Bitcoin Falls Below $20,000 After Twitter Row Between Billionaire Crypto Executives Triggers Withdrawals From FTX

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Topline

The price of bitcoin fell below $20,000 on Mondaydropping alongside other major cryptocurrenciesamid concerns about the financial health of FTX, one of the worlds largest cryptocurrency exchanges, a day after competitor Binance announced it would dump FTXs token.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried accused Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao of trying to go after his company with … [+] false rumors.

Virgil Simon Bertrand for Forbes. Key Facts

Early on Tuesday morning, bitcoin prices stood at $19,722, down more than 5% compared to the previous day, while Ethereum fell more than 6% to $1,482.

Tuesday’s crash in crypto prices follows a massive outflow of tokens from FTX in the past 24 hours amid fears that the popular crypto exchange may be insolvent.

Concerns about FTXs health emerged on Sunday after Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced his company would liquidate its holdings of FTXs FTT token due to recent revelations.

A day later, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried shot back at Zhao on Twitter saying a competitor is trying to go after us with false rumors, adding that FTX and its assets are fine.

The price of the FTT token, which Binance began dumping on Monday, has dropped 23% to $17.33 in the past 24 hours.

Crucial Quote

Bankman-Fried ended his exchange with Zhao by tweeting: I’d love it, [Changpeng Zhao]

, if we could work together for the ecosystem. Key Background

Although Zhao did not provide details about the recent revelations he was likely referring to, a report by Coindesk from earlier this month. The report found the majority of Alameda Researchsthe trading firm founded by Bankman-Friedassets are made up of FTT tokens which are controlled and minted by FTX. At the time the Coindesk report was published, FTTs price was above $25 and since then the tokens market cap has fallen more than $1.1 billion. After Zhaos announcement, Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison offered to buy all of Binances FTT tokens at a price of $22. Ellison also argued that the Coindesk article did not share the complete picture as the balance sheet it had seen was only for a subset of our corporate entities, adding that Alameda had more than $10 billion in assets that arent reflected on those sheets.

Forbes Rating

We estimate Sam Bankman-Frieds total net worth to be $16.8 billion, while Changpeng Zhaos is $17.4 billion.

Further Reading

Divisions in Sam Bankman-Frieds Crypto Empire Blur on His Trading Titan Alamedas Balance Sheet (Coindesk)

Billionaire Changpeng Zhaos Binance To Offload All Remaining FTT Tokens Of Sam Bankman-Frieds FTX (Forbes)

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