FTX US announces it may halt trading on its platform in a few days

In a long apology, the CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried — popularly known as “SBF” — assured the crypto community that the recent turn of events was only going to affect FTX international. According to him, “FTX US, the US based exchange that accepts Americans, was not financially impacted by this shitshow.” He assured users that FTX US was “100% liquid” and that “Every user could fully withdraw (modulo gas fees etc)”. 

19) A few other assorted comments:

This was about FTX International. FTX US, the US based exchange that accepts Americans, was not financially impacted by this shitshow.

It's 100% liquid. Every user could fully withdraw (modulo gas fees etc).

Updates on its future coming.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 10, 2022

However, many are beginning to question the validity of his statement, as a recent announcement on FTX US’ website is beginning to raise eyebrows for users. According to a banner at the top of FTX US’ website, “trading may be halted on FTX US in a few days.” The announcement urged exchange users to “please close down any positions” they may want to close down, while assuring its users that “withdrawals are and will remain open.”

FTX International’s liquidity issues were triggered within the last seven days when Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced that his exchange would liquidate its FTX Token (FTT) holdings. CZ’s announcement effectively initiated a bank run whereby FTX’s users attempted to withdraw funds only to discover that the exchange didn’t have enough liquidity on hand to meet the demand.

Related: US lawmaker warns of ‘major consequences’ for users of unregulated crypto firms, citing FTX

Within the past week, reports have also surfaced that Bankman-Fried called investors saying the exchange needed $8 billion in emergency funding to help cover the withdrawal requests and looked to raise $3 billion to $4 billion.

On Oct. 10, Cointelegraph reported that data from Etherscan indicated that the troubled cryptocurrency exchange appears to have resumed withdrawals.