In this interview, Cyril Sabbagh discussed the following questions:
1- How do you analyze the FTX downturn?
2- The big losses of investors as a result
3- Should we now expect an industry-wide crisis of confidence, and if so, how long can it last?
4- Do you now fear a contagion effect?
5- How are investors behaving in this troubled period?
As a start, he said that the FTX case came to sink the crypto market, but they were not all housed in the same boat. The SOL for its part lost more than 50% due to the very strong links between the Solana ecosystem and FTX/Alameda and their FTT token is now worth almost nothing.
He added that a lot of giant investors such as Sequoia, BlackRock or Visa have been taken in, which risks hurting the ecosystem and the image of cryptocurrencies. What happened highlights the financial embezzlement of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX with reprehensible actions.
Regarding this industry, Cyril expected that a crisis of confidence will take place and it could be complicated to manage. Since everything is moving fast in the cryptocurrency world, the ecosystem will quickly learn from FTX’s mistakes, regulators and industry players will ensure that confidence quickly returns to the markets requiring more regulation and more transparency.
There are two scenarios: Either we are at the beginning and the collateral damage can be immense and the other scenario is that no other major players go out of business, in which case the low point may have already been hit in the market.
During this period, investors are very cautious, and they are likely to wait for things to settle down before returning to the market. At the same time, we are seeing a lot of fund transfers, with some obviously opting for platforms deemed to be safer.