The Epic Collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX Exchange: A Crypto Markets Timeline

Tracing the CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) through key news developments in the swift unraveling of billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto empire shows just how quickly the speculation kept shifting.

Nov 12, 2022 at 4:01 p.m. UTC

Updated Nov 15, 2022 at 1:43 p.m. UTC

CDCROP: Annotated chart of the 162-asset CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) over the course of the FTX and Alameda saga. (CoinDesk Indices and Research/Sage D. Young) — Annotated chart of the 162-asset CoinDesk Market Index (CMI) over the course of the FTX and Alameda saga. (CoinDesk Indices and Research/Sage D. Young)

Sage D. Young is a tech protocol reporter at CoinDesk. He owns BTC, ETH, LINK, AAVE, PEOPLE, DOGE, OS, and HTR as well as a few NFTs.

Follow @httpsageyd on Twitter

Bradley Keoun

Bradley Keoun is the managing editor of CoinDesk's Markets team. He owns less than $1,000 each of several cryptocurrencies.

Follow @Liqquidity on Twitter

After this week's shocking (and still-unfolding) developments in the crypto industry, including the rapid unraveling of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX exchange and Alameda Research trading firm, analysts with CoinDesk Indices worked with CoinDesk journalists to put together an annotated chart of the movements in the 162-asset CoinDesk Market Index (CMI).

The chart (featured above) shows how digital-asset traders scrambled to keep up.

Here's a timeline of the events:

Nov. 2: CoinDesk publishes exclusive revealing key balance-sheet details of Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research trading firm, showing it's heavily invested in the FTX exchange's FTT token.

Nov. 6: Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao says he's selling his remaining holdings of FTT tokens. (Minutes later, Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, tweets that Alameda will buy Zhao's FTT tokens for $22 each.

Nov. 8: The FTT token price falls below $22.

Nov. 8: Binance announces non-binding letter of intent to buy FTX, subject to due diligence, easing the industry panic.

Nov. 9: CoinDesk is first to report Binance is strongly leaning against buying FTX after just a few hours of checking its books and loans.

Nov. 9: Binance officially walks away from the FTX deal.

Nov. 9: Without details, Justin Sun drops hints at saving FTX.

Nov. 10: Bankman-Fried says Alameda Research, the trading firm at the center of the drama, is being wound down.

Nov. 10: FTX assets frozen by Bahamian regulator.

Nov. 11: FTX files for bankruptcy protection in U.S.

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