Sam Bankman-Fried is looking for up to $ 8 billion to save the crypto empire

Sam Bankman-Fried tries to raise up to $ 8 billion to save his crypto empire, while more and more of his former supporters are copying their investments in the FTX exchange.

The 30-year-old admitted on Thursday on Twitter that the FTX trading place does not have sufficiently easily accessible funds to meet customer requirements. Investors recruited by Bankman-Fried described a chaotic appeal by the humble crypto boss to stuff his company's financial hole.

The result of Bankman-Fried's escape to cash will determine the fate of FTX, in the face of growing doubts about his ability to remain over water without injection of fresh capital, and the concern for customers whose money is stuck in the frozen stock exchange. As a sign of how the pressure on the companies associated with it increases, FTX US said, which is separated from the international stock exchange that it could stop trading on its platform in the coming days.

investors put the amount that Bankman-Fried is aiming for at $ 6 to $ 8 billion. Alameda Research, his trading company, owes FTX $ 10 billion, said two people familiar with the matter.

Several investors have reduced their investment to FTX to zero, which indicates that they will probably no longer invest money. Paradigm, an investor with a participation of $ 300 million in the trading center, reduced the value of its investment to zero after the risk capital company Sequoia announced this on Wednesday.

An investor said Bankman-Fried wool the KRYPTO exchange OKX, the StableCoin operator Tether and Tron founder Justin Sun won for the new middle procurement.

Paolo Ardoinino, Chief Technology Officer from Tether, said the Financial Times that the company does not play a role in saving FTX. He said Bankman-Fried reported a few days ago before the broken rescue operation for Binance was announced to ask the stable coin issuer for help.

"We were asked if we were interested in investing or lending money. We said no," said Ardoinino.

Sun did not answer a request for comment, but tweeted: "Together with FTX, we put together a solution to initiate a way forward."

In late Thursday, FTX announced that it has made an agreement with Tron that sets up a "special facility", which enables owners of some crypto tokens to exchange assets one to one from FTX for external wallets.

okx rejected an exclusive deal for saving FTX on Tuesday, but still considering whether it should provide funds, said people familiar with the matter. His managers are concerned about the risk that FTX uses customer deposits and the possibility of complaints from customers.

investors and customers contacted the prominent American process lawyer David Boies to submit a lawsuit, said people familiar with the matter. In the meantime, Bankman-Fried Paul Weiss partner Martin Flumenbaum, who is known to represent JUNK Bond dealer Michael Milken, who was arrested for violation of US security laws and later pardoned.

Boies refused to comment, while Flumenbaum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The impetus for the procurement of funds is less than a month after FTX was willing to carry out a round of financing of Serie C, which corresponds to its valuation of USD 32 billion in January.

An investor said that Bankman-Fried apparently conducts the financial rescue attempt without professional consultants. "It looks as if he carries out this process via SMS himself. He has no man," added the investor.

Bankman-Fried blamed bad internal records for incorrect accounting for leverage and liquidity on the stock exchange. "I'm sorry.. I screwed it up," he said.

He promised that the current assets and the money collected would be used first to repay customers and offered to step down as managing director when the company survives.

"There are a number of players with whom we are in conversation, [Letters of Intent], Termsheets, etc.," said Bankman-Fried. "I can't promise anything."

Additional reporting by William Langley, Chan Ho-Him and James Fontanella-Khan