FTX Raises $420,690,000

It’s a nice Series B-1 for Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange following a $900 million mega-round earlier this year.

AccessTimeIconOct 21, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 4:06 p.m. UTC
10 Years of Decentralizing the Future
May 29-31, 2024 - Austin, TexasThe biggest and most established global hub for everything crypto, blockchain and Web3.Register Now

FTX has memed itself into another massive funding round.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s Bahamas-based crypto exchange said Wednesday it had raised $420,690,000 in a Series B-1 funding round. Sixty-nine investors – including BlackRock and Tiger Global – joined the fast-growing crypto conglomerate.

Investors valued the exchange at $25 billion, FTX said, a nearly 39% jump over the Series B sticker price from July when it raised a whopping $900 million in crypto’s largest-ever venture capital funding round. FTX says users have grown 48% in that period and trading volume rose 75%.

Surging growth coincided with FTX’s summertime marketing blitz. The new funding round is being announced as bitcoin tops fresh all-time highs.

The exchange has spent big on sports advertising this year, writing a mainstream outreach playbook with Major League Baseball that competitor Coinbase appears to be following in a new deal with the National Basketball Association.

But courting name recognition is just one spoke in the strategy, Bankman-Fried told CoinDesk in an interview.

Awash in venture capital and multimillion-dollar-a-day revenue streams, the CEO is planning a series of acquisitions and partnerships to get FTX into more countries, with more users.

“We’ve probably done a half a billion dollars of acquisitions so far this year,” Bankman-Fried told CoinDesk in a call. He said the coming buys are “potentially sizable.”

All that from a company whose influence is growing by the day. FTX – once only an overseas crypto derivatives exchange – now boasts a U.S. affiliate with its own NFT marketplace and a roadmap to offering regulated futures products.

The power FTX has amassed over the cryptosphere was on display last week when it barred NFTs projects with revenue-sharing schemes from listing on its marketplace. A number of projects, including Solarians, quickly dumped that feature to comply, angering troves of buyers.

“To some extent, people are taking cues from us,” Bankman-Fried said.

Disclosure

Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.

CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. In November 2023, CoinDesk was acquired by the Bullish group, owner of Bullish, a regulated, digital assets exchange. The Bullish group is majority-owned by Block.one; both companies have interests in a variety of blockchain and digital asset businesses and significant holdings of digital assets, including bitcoin. CoinDesk operates as an independent subsidiary with an editorial committee to protect journalistic independence. CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive options in the Bullish group as part of their compensation.

Danny Nelson

Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.


Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk's longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to consensus.coindesk.com to register and buy your pass now.


Read more about