FTX To Raise Fresh Funds, Sam Bankman-Fried Says

FTX, the third largest crypto exchange by trading volume, is set to raise fresh capital amid the prevailing crypto winter and aims to make "efficient acquisitions" as the valuations of crypto firms continue to decline.

The founder and chief executive officer of the leading crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, was present at The Wall Street Journal's Tech Live conference Tuesday, and it was where he confirmed that while initiating acquisition deals, FTX also aims to boost the number of retail users on the platform, according to a report from the outlet. The crypto billionaire believes the growth of the retail segment on the exchange has been slow.

Bankman-Fried, popularly known as SBF in the crypto space, stated that although FTX only has a fraction of the users present on the second-largest crypto exchange Coinbase, the platform has a higher trading volume than its rival exchange.

"We don't see that much of a point in going out and trying to make an acquisition to try and get highly-engaged crypto traders. Those are people who know who we are," SBF said, as per the report. "What we would be looking at more would be on the retail side."

The FTX executive also made a joke about creating a cryptocurrency based on cats, making a reference to the surge in popularity of Dogecoin (DOGE), Shiba Inu (SHIB), Floki Inu (FLOKI) and other dog meme-based tokens in 2021.

SBF also confirmed that he won't be making any more bailout-type deals like what he made earlier this year with bankrupt crypto lending platform Voyager Digital.

Bankman-Fried said at the conference that the firm is in talks with investors to raise money at its previous valuation of $32 billion. As previously reported, people close to the matter said FTX plans to raise around $1 billion at the same valuation. However, SBF did not confirm the amount during the conference.

Interestingly, as per internal documents viewed by the outlet, FTX US, the U.S. arm of FTX, also aims to raise money at a valuation of $8 billion.