Report: FTX CEO Says Crypto Exchange Is Ready to Spend Billions on Acquisition Deals

Billionaire and FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried said the leading crypto asset exchange aims to make a number of acquisitions and could spend up to $2 billion on such efforts. The FTX chief executive officer highlighted in a recent interview that a fraction of the funds raised by the company were “explicitly viewed from a potential acquisition angle.”

FTX Executive Sam Bankman-Fried Says Funds Raised Could Be Leveraged for Acquisitions

Sam Bankman-Fried spoke in an interview with Bloomberg’s Allyson Versprille and Yueqi Yang on Friday and explained that FTX is thinking about expansion moves and acquisitions. The crypto exchange FTX and its parent company West Realm Shire Services Inc. have raised over $2 billion from investors.

FTX trade volume data shows it is the second-largest cryptocurrency trading platform below Binance in terms of global trade volume. During the past 24 hours, FTX has recorded $1.56 billion in crypto trades with its 338 coins and 524 trading pairs.

Bankman-Fried explained during the interview with Bloomberg’s Versprille and Yang that the company’s war chest of funds could be leveraged for a number of acquisitions.

“FTX is a profitable company,” the FTX executive explained. “You can look at the amount that we’ve raised over the last year or two – it’s a few billion dollars. That gives maybe a sense of where we are in terms of cash that was explicitly viewed from a potential acquisition angle.”

The FTX co-founder further detailed that the company wants to be able to offer customers more products so they can stay on the platform for all their needs, Bankman-Fried remarked. As far as acquisitions are concerned, Bankman-Fried said the firm is keeping a focused lookout. The FTX executive added:

It’s always something that we’re going to be open to and keeping our ears to the ground on.

Bankman-Fried’s comments follow FTX US launching a zero commission equities trading platform. The discussion on Friday also follows Bankman-Fried’s statements concerning bitcoin (BTC) and the network’s ability to be a payment network.

Bankman-Fried was also named one of the “100 Most Influential People of 2022” by TIME and time.com author Andrew R. Chow featured the FTX CEO in a profile editorial.