FTX Fires Three Top Executives Including Founder Gary Wang: Report
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which recently filed for US court protection, has fired three of its top executives, including co-founder Gary Wang, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing an FTX spokesperson.
Other executives fired were director of engineering Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison, who ran FTX’s commercial unit Alameda Research, the newspaper said.
FTX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy protection last week and former Wall Street trader Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO after rival Binance walked away from a proposed acquisition.
The US bankruptcy proceedings involve many of the FTX group’s more than 1,00,000, and possibly more than one million, creditors.
According to interviews with several people close to Bankman-Fried and previously unreported company communications, the company was risking customers’ money to finance Bankman-Fried’s brokerage, which led to the company’s collapse.
The company has come under regulatory scrutiny with many of the licenses it acquired through its many acquisitions. But that did not protect its customers and investors, who are now facing losses totaling billions of dollars.
Several crypto firms have since been watching the FTX collapse, with many counting their exposure in the millions on heavy trading.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
