FTX Global Halts Withdrawals Leaving Many Stuck

FTX Global has halted withdrawals leaving many stuck. While it is currently unknown if withdrawals will begin again or if there will be some sort of bailout, past situations hint that while relief should be coming, it won’t be coming any time soon.

UPDATE: FTX.US is not currently safe to use. See FTX hack.

This is the first time since Mt. Gox that so many prominent players have potentially lost their funds at the same time.

While CZ from Binance initially showed interest in bailing out the exchange, they quickly backed out of the deal.

Meanwhile, it looks like one of the main issues was a lack of liquidity, mixed with a sort of bank run. This left Samuel Bankman-Fried (SBF) and his companies unable to fulfill all withdrawals and FTX had to halt withdrawals. For now, FTX.US does not seem to be impacted, however, liquidity has dried up on there as well.

Perhaps the best way to understand what happened is from SBF himself. So here is a thread:

3) So here's an update on where things are.

[THIS IS ALL ABOUT FTX INTERNATIONAL, THE NON-US EXCHANGE. FTX US USERS ARE FINE!]

[TREAT ALL OF THESE NUMBERS AS ROUGH. THERE ARE APPROXIMATIONS HERE.]

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 10, 2022