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Jamie Crawley
Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.
Danny Nelson
Danny is CoinDesk's deputy business editor. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.
Sam Bankman-Fried is raising an army of FTX unicorns.
FTX US, the crypto trading giant’s stateside wing, on Wednesday said it raised $400 million at an $8 billion valuation – one of the industry’s largest Series A rounds. Its eponymous parent company commanded a $25 billion valuation in October.
The staggering sum adds fuel to one of the U.S. crypto industry’s fastest-growing brands. The exchange’s now 1.2 million-strong user base traded $67 billion in spot crypto last year as average daily volume spiked 608%, according to statistics shared with CoinDesk.
The exchange entered the U.S. market in May 2020, and now has a 24-hour trading volume of $255.5 million, according to data from CoinGecko.
Much of that growth came as the trading juggernaut made massive business development and partnership bets – especially in sports. From umpires donning branded patches to athletes-turned-pitchmen Tom Brady and David Ortiz asking TV viewers, “You in?,” FTX US aggressively courted the U.S. market.
Paradigm, Temasek, Multicoin Capital, SoftBank and others participated in the round, according to the press release. FTX US plans to use its fresh $400 million to “accelerate its growth” on a warpath to becoming the ”largest crypto exchange in the U.S.”
It has a long way to go. Coinbase, the publicly traded crypto exchange with 73 million global users, receives over 50% of its web traffic from the U.S., according to Similarweb. (Coinbase does not share country-by-country user breakdowns.)
New product lines
“The FTX US team is laying the groundwork to become the dominant trading platform in the United States for all things crypto: spot trading, derivatives, and NFTs,” Kyle Samani, managing partner at VC fund Multicoin Capital, told CoinDesk.
With last year’s acquisition of LEDGER Holdings Inc. now closed, FTX US, a Chicago-based firm, is well-positioned to expand its product line into derivatives, a closely regulated market in the U.S.
President Brett Harrison said in a statement he felt “confident that FTX US will emerge as the leading U.S.-regulated crypto spot and derivatives exchange.” He did not respond to texts.
The U.S. arm of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has raised $400 million from investors including SoftBank and Temasek, giving it a valuation of $8 billion.
UPDATE (Jan. 26, 9:10 UTC): Adds historical information, fundraising target starting in third bullet point.
UPDATE (Jan. 26, 9:30 UTC): Removes "Report" from headline and replaces link to Reuters article with one to company announcement; adds FTX valuation.
UPDATE (Jan. 26, 13:19 UTC): Adds information throughout.
UPDATE (Jan. 26, 9:30 UTC): Removes "Report" from headline and replaces link to Reuters article with one to company announcement; adds FTX valuation.
UPDATE (Jan. 26, 13:19 UTC): Adds information throughout.
