Connect with us

Markets

Visualized: FTX’s Leaked Balance Sheet

Published

on

Visualization of FTX Balance Sheet

Can I share this graphic?
Yes. Visualizations are free to share and post in their original form across the web—even for publishers. Please link back to this page and attribute Visual Capitalist.
When do I need a license?
Licenses are required for some commercial uses, translations, or layout modifications. You can even whitelabel our visualizations. Explore your options.
Interested in this piece?
Click here to license this visualization.

Visualizing FTX’s Balance Sheet Before Bankruptcy

In a difficult year for the crypto space that has been full of hacks, failing funds, and decentralized stablecoins going to zero, nothing has compared to FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) rapid implosion.

After an astronomical rise in the crypto space over the past three years, crypto exchange FTX and its founder and CEO SBF have come crashing back down to earth, largely unraveled by their misuse of customer funds and illicit relationship with trading firm Alameda Research.

This graphic visualizes FTX’s leaked balance sheet dated to November 10th, and published by the Financial Times on November 12th. The spreadsheet shows nearly $9 billion in liabilities and not nearly enough illiquid cryptocurrency assets to cover the hole.

How did FTX wind up in this position?

How FTX’s Bankruptcy Unfolded

FTX’s eventual bankruptcy was sparked by a report on November 2nd by CoinDesk citing Alameda Research’s balance sheet. The article reported Alameda’s assets to be $14.6 billion, including $3.66 billion worth of unlocked FTT and $2.16 billion of FTT collateral.

With more than one-third of Alameda’s assets tied up in FTX’s exchange token FTT (including loans backed by the token), eyebrows were raised among the crypto community.

Four days later on November 6th, Alameda Research’s CEO, Caroline Ellison, and Sam Bankman-Fried addressed the CoinDesk story as unfounded rumors. However, on the same day, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) announced that Binance had decided to liquidate all remaining FTT on their books, kicking off a -7.6% decline in the FTT token on the day.

Back and Forth with Binance’s CZ

While Ellison publicly offered to buy CZ’s FTT directly “over the counter” to avoid further price declines and SBF claimed in a now-deleted tweet that “FTX is fine. Assets are fine.”, FTX users were withdrawing their funds from the exchange.

Less than 24 hours later on November 7th, both SBF and CZ tweeted that Binance had signed a non-binding letter of intent for the acquisition of FTX, pending due diligence.

The next day, the acquisition fell apart as Binance cited corporate due diligence, leaving SBF to face a multi-directional liquidity crunch of users withdrawing funds and rapidly declining token prices that made up large amounts of FTX and Alameda’s assets and collateral for loans.

FTX’s Liabilities and Largely Illiquid Assets

In the final days before declaring bankruptcy, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried attempted a final fundraising in order restore stability while billions in user funds were being withdrawn from his exchange.

The balance sheet he sent around to prospective investors was leaked by the Financial Times, and reveals the exchange had nearly $9 billion in liabilities while only having just over $1 billion in liquid assets. Alongside the liquid assets were $5.4 billion in assets labeled as “less liquid” and $3.2 billion labeled as “illiquid”.

When examining the assets listed, FTX’s accounting appears to be poorly done at best, and fraudulently deceptive at worst.

Of those “less liquid” assets, many of the largest sums were in assets like FTX’s own exchange token and cryptocurrencies of the Solana ecosystem, which were heavily supported by FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried. On top of this, for many of these coins the liquidity simply wouldn’t have been there if FTX had attempted to redeem these cryptocurrencies for U.S. dollars or stablecoin equivalents.

While the liquid and less liquid assets on the balance sheet amounted to $6.3 billion (still not enough to equal the $8.9 billion in liabilities), many of these “less liquid” assets may as well have been completely illiquid.

Relationship with Alameda Research

When looking at FTX’s financials in isolation, it’s impossible to understand how one of crypto’s largest exchanges ended up with such a lopsided and illiquid balance sheet. Many of the still unfolding details lie in the exchange’s relationship with SBF’s previous venture that he founded, trading firm Alameda Research.

Founded by SBF in 2017, Alameda Research primarily operated as a delta-neutral (a term that describes trading strategies like market making and arbitrage that attempt to avoid taking directional risk) trading firm. In the summer of 2021, SBF stepped down from Alameda Research to focus on FTX, however his influence and connection with the firm was still deeply ingrained.

A report from the Wall Street Journal cites how Alameda was able to amass crypto tokens ahead of their announced public FTX listings, which were often catalysts in price surges. Alongside this, a Reuters story has revealed how SBF secretly moved $10 billion in funds to Alameda, using a bookkeeping “back door” to avoid internal scrutiny at FTX.

While SBF responded to the Reuters story by saying they “had confusing internal labeling and misread it,” there are few doubts that this murky relationship between Alameda Research and FTX was a fatal one for the former billionaire’s empire.

Click for Comments

Markets

Graphene: An Investor’s Guide to the Emerging Market

The market value of graphene could reach $3.75 billion by 2030. As the emerging industry shows fast growth, it also faces obstacles.

Published

on

The following content is sponsored by HydroGraph

Graphene: An Investor’s Guide to the Emerging Market

Graphene is an atomic-scale “honeycomb” that is revolutionizing the world of materials and capturing investor attention.

Experts predict that its market value could reach the billion-dollar threshold by 2027 and soar to a staggering $3.75 billion by 2030.

In this infographic sponsored by HydroGraph, we dive into everything investors need to know about this exciting industry and where it’s headed.

Promising Properties

Graphene possesses several unique physical properties which contribute to its wide range of potential applications.

  • 200 times stronger than steel
  • Harder than diamonds
  • 1,000 times lighter than paper
  • 98% transparent
  • Higher electrical conductivity than copper
  • Heat conductivity: 5 times that of copper
  • 2,630 m² of surface area per gram

Since its first successful isolation in 2004, graphene’s properties have opened the doors to a multitude of commercial applications and products.

Applications of Graphene

Graphene has permeated numerous sectors like electronics, energy, and healthcare because of its impressive array of end uses.

IndustryRevenue CAGR of Graphene Across Industries, 2022-2027
Biomedical and Healthcare52%
Electronics and Telecommunications34%
Energy25%
Aerospace and Defense16%
Other End-User Industries17%

Graphene’s antibacterial properties make it highly suitable for medical instruments and implants. Furthermore, it has shown remarkable potential in helping treat diseases such as cancer.

Another one of the material’s applications is its ability to emit high-speed light pulses, or to combine graphene’s thinness and high-conductivity to create the tiniest possible light sources.

All in all, it’s difficult to sum up graphene’s properties and potential applications in one place. The supermaterial has been covered and cited in thousands of academic journals, and comes up with over 2 million search results on Google Scholar.

Graphene Commercialization

Graphene has evolved from a scientific breakthrough to a commercial reality in less than two decades, putting it firmly on the radar of many future-focused investors.

But despite the strides the industry is making, it is still in its infancy, and therefore challenges exist on the path to widespread adoption. Here are the top five commercialization obstacles perceived by industry players.

Obstacle% of survey respondents
Cost31%
Production Methods, Scaling, and Distribution21%
Material Quality/Consistency17%
Lack of Knowledge/Awareness15%
Dispersion/Handling14%

When transitioning cutting-edge materials from the laboratory to consumer products, challenges like these can be expected. But one company is tackling them head-on.

By producing 99.8% pure graphene, and ensuring batch-to-batch consistency, HydroGraph is helping meet the growing demand for graphene products across industries while addressing challenges like cost, scale, and quality.

Visual Capitalist Logo

Interested in learning more? Explore investment opportunities with HydroGraph now.

Subscribe to Visual Capitalist
Click for Comments

You may also like

Subscribe

Continue Reading

Subscribe

Popular