8 November 2022: Binance agrees to rescue FTX, for a day
Days after reports raised questions about the balance sheet of FTX's sister trading firm, Binance chief Changpeng Zhao announced a deal to buy rival exchange FTX, which was facing a run on withdrawals. Crypto prices tumbled anyway. By the next day Binance had walked away, citing what it found in the books. FTX filed for bankruptcy within days, and its founder was later convicted of fraud.
The lesson: If an exchange cannot return your money on demand, it is not holding your money.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in BNB at the start of 2020 → $42,857 today, vs $2,092 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2020, the latest year on the wheel. That is 42.9 times the money, and $40,765 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What BNB teaches: An exchange token is a concentrated bet on one company and its founder, without the legal claims of a shareholder; survival depends on trust in that firm.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $8.00 | $75,000 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $14.00 | $42,857 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought BNB? Every starting year and the full story →
More BNB history
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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