Historical replay · BTC/USD
The FTX Collapse (November 2022)
Between November 7-9, 2022, the withdrawal run and subsequent collapse of the FTX exchange rattled confidence across the industry, triggering a rapid sell-off in Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.
On November 2, 2022, a specialist outlet published an investigation revealing that Alameda Research — a trading firm closely tied to the FTX exchange, both founded by the same person — held a balance sheet heavily concentrated in FTT, the native token issued by FTX itself. The news raised serious doubts about the group's actual financial soundness.
A few days later, the CEO of rival exchange Binance announced it would liquidate all of its FTT holdings, fueling the panic. This triggered a full-blown bank run: thousands of users attempted to withdraw funds from FTX simultaneously. On November 8, FTX was forced to halt withdrawals, and on November 11 it filed for bankruptcy, later revealing a multi-billion-dollar shortfall in customer funds.
The event devastated confidence in the entire centralized exchange industry, since FTX had been considered, just weeks earlier, one of the market's most trusted and well-capitalized players. Bitcoin fell from around $21,000 to below $16,000 during those days, marking what later turned out to be the bottom of the 2022 bear cycle, and led to a wave of new regulation and greater scrutiny of exchange transparency worldwide.