Battle of Crypto Titans Ends: Binance to Acquire FTX

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao announced that the crypto exchange has tentatively agreed to acquire competitor Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX for an undisclosed amount.

“There is a lot to cover and will take some time. This is a highly dynamic situation, and we are assessing the situation in real time,” Zhao wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Binance has the discretion to pull out from the deal at any time. We expect FTT to be highly volatile in the coming days as things develop.”

The FTT token, which had slumped as low as $14.57 on Tuesday morning on rumors that FTX had suspended withdrawals, rebounded to $19.86 on the news, according to Coingecko.

Zhao said that the Binance team would be conducting due diligence on the deal.

Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried confirmed the agreement in his own thread on Twitter, saying that the two exchanges had agreed to a “strategic transaction.” He also addressed a withdrawal backlog, which appeared to be behind reports that the exchange had suspended withdrawals on Tuesday morning.

“Our teams are working on clearing out the withdrawal backlog as is. This will clear out liquidity crunches; all assets will be covered 1:1,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “This is one of the main reasons we’ve asked Binance to come in. It may take a bit to settle etc. — we apologize for that.”

This story is developing and will be updated.