4 weeks ago
In his caller memoir, Changpeng Zhao reveals helium signed the FTX missive of intent arsenic a formality and calls Caroline Ellison's $22 level terms connection a "fatal mistake."
Apr 8, 2026, 12:00 a.m.
Binance laminitis Changpeng Zhao (CZ) says Sam Bankman-Fried asked him for "a mates of cardinal dollars nonchalantly, arsenic if helium were asking for a bologna sandwich" during the telephone telephone that preceded Binance's attempt to get FTX successful November 2022, and that helium ne'er had immoderate volition of going done with it.
"I didn't person immoderate involvement successful owning FTX. I besides wasn't that funny successful helping SBF," Zhao writes successful his memoir Freedom of Money, released Tuesday. "But we whitethorn person to measurement successful to support the users and the industry." He signed the non-binding Letter of Intent, helium says, purely arsenic a formality: "I was explicit that we were not making immoderate commitment. Our squad would simply measure the numbers and past decide."
On the illness itself, Zhao is wide astir wherever it unraveled. When Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison publically offered to bargain Binance's FTT holdings astatine $22 each — an effort to stabilize the marketplace — Zhao says she made "a fatal mistake."
"She had conscionable revealed her level price," helium writes. Professional traders instantly shorted FTT done that level. The token fell to $15, past $10, past $5. Within 72 hours, $6 cardinal had exited FTX.
Zhao besides discloses the beingness of "Exchange Collaboration," a Signal radical acceptable up by FTX's Zane Tackett during the Terra/LUNA illness earlier that year, which included Zhao, Bankman-Fried, Brian Armstrong of Coinbase, Jesse Powell of Kraken and others. The radical aboriginal attracted scrutiny from DOJ and SEC investigators. "They were keen to find immoderate imaginable hint of collusion oregon marketplace manipulation betwixt the exchanges," Zhao writes. "Of people determination was nary specified happening successful this case."
By Nov. 9, Binance had walked distant from the deal. Binance's ain FTT holdings — worthy $580 cardinal astatine their highest — had go "basically worthless," Zhao writes, echoing the company's $1.6 cardinal LUNA wipeout six months earlier.
The aftermath brought a slope tally connected Binance, with $7 cardinal withdrawn successful a azygous time connected Dec. 14. Zhao says helium spent that evening astatine meal with friends. "I was not worried," helium writes. "All idiosyncratic funds were successful our reserves." Within a month, helium says, users had deposited it each backmost — and more.
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