The Binance cryptocurrency colossus has invested an undisclosed amount of money in the FTX derivatives platform as part of a strategic partnership between the two companies.
As part of the agreement
announced Thursday, Binance bought shares of the derivative firm and bought
long positions in the FTX token, FTT, the platform's native currency.
"The investment will help
accelerate the growth of FTX with the support and strategic advice of Binance,
while FTX maintains its independent operations," said FTX founder and CEO
Sam Bankman-Fried.
In return, FTX will help develop
Binance products, in particular its flagship exchange, Binance.com, and its
over-the-counter (OTC) trading table. FTX also announced its intention to build
a set of complementary products to tokenized ecosystems, a project that Binance,
based in Malta, will help
.
Founded in spring 2019, FTX was
an incubation project for Alameda Research, a digital asset research firm. FTX
offers OTC, futures, indices and spot operations and operates from the
Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda. The exchange processes almost half a
billion dollars of commercial volume per day, according to a Binance statement.
"The FTX team has built an
innovative crypto trading platform with amazing growth," Binance CEO
Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said in a statement. "We see a little of
ourselves in the FTX team and believe in its potential to become an important
player in crypto derivatives markets."
The investment follows the
acquisition of JEX in September of Binance, a spot and derivatives platform
based in Seychelles. The acquisition helped the exchange add options and
futures to its trading platform.
