Cryptocurrency market rocked by the near collapse of exchange, FTX

Today’s popular ditaigl assets market has been rocked by the near collapse of one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, FTX.

FTX struck a bailout deal on Tuesday with its rival Binance after a surge in withdrawals caused a "significant liquidity crunch". The concern about the financial health of FTX has triggered $6 billion of withdrawal in three days. Binance agreed to buy the non-US unit of FTX, pending due diligence.

The founder Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX and the chief executive of Binance, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao are high-profile rivals and the most powerful people in the cryptocurrency market. The pressure on FTX came in part from Zhao, who tweeted on Sunday that his company would sell its holdings of FTT, the digital token of FTX. According to him, FTT has lost 80% of its value within just a week. Binance signed a letter of intent to buy FTX but said that it had "the discretion to pull out from the deal at any time".

With cryptocurrencies falling sharply, the news has sent shockwaves through the digital assets market. Since November 2020 Bitcoin fell by more than 10% to hit its lowest level. Moreover, Robinhood, an online trading platform has lost more than 19% of its stock market value, while Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange fell by 10%.