Changpeng Zhao has stated that he never gave serious thought to acquiring FTX, characterizing the approach made by Sam Bankman-Fried as indirect and noncommittal. Zhao describes the letter of intent that was exchanged as a pure formality, intended only to determine whether FTX’s users could be protected rather than as a genuine step toward a deal. His account suggests the acquisition talks were far less substantive than they may have appeared at the time.
Zhao identifies a specific moment as the turning point that sealed FTX’s fate. He argues that when Caroline Ellison publicly offered to purchase FTT tokens at $22, she inadvertently handed professional traders a defined floor price from which to build short positions against the exchange. In his view, that public statement transformed market sentiment and set off the chain of events that led to FTX’s downfall.
A separate element of scrutiny emerged from a Signal messaging group called “Exchange Collaboration,” which had been established by FTX’s Zane Tackett. The group later attracted attention from both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission, with investigators examining whether its members had engaged in potential collusion. Zhao has flatly denied any wrongdoing in connection with the group’s communications.
The sequence of events surrounding FTX’s collapse has remained a subject of intense legal and regulatory interest. The involvement of multiple exchanges and senior figures in private messaging channels raised questions about coordination during a period of extreme market stress. Authorities have continued to examine the conduct of various parties throughout the crisis.
Zhao’s account places the responsibility for FTX’s collapse squarely on decisions made within the exchange itself, particularly Ellison’s public market intervention. His characterization of Bankman-Fried’s outreach as wishy-washy further distances him from any suggestion that Binance played an active role in engineering FTX’s difficulties. The statements form part of a broader effort by Zhao to define his own position relative to one of the largest failures in cryptocurrency history.
Originally reported by CoinDesk.
