"The Big Short" Author: Zhao Changpeng once rejected SBF's $40 million futures trading platform cooperation, later proposed to pay $80 million to acquire 20% of FTX shares

ChainCatcher news, Michael Lewis, the author of "The Big Short," revealed in his new book "Going Infinite" that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) proposed a collaboration to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao in early 2019, hoping to introduce the cryptocurrency futures trading platform technology developed by his team to Binance for $40 million. In this proposal, Alameda Research was responsible for providing technical support, while Binance would bring in customers and market trust.

After careful consideration, Zhao decided to reject SBF's proposal and chose to develop a futures trading platform independently. As a result, SBF turned to independent development, intending to build a futures trading platform that could cater not only to the cryptocurrency community but also to large professional trading firms like Jane Street. FTX initially issued 350 million FTT tokens, some offered to employees at $0.05 and others at $0.10 to key figures in the cryptocurrency space, including Zhao. Although Zhao and most FTX employees chose to decline, the strong buying demand from external investors prompted SBF to raise the token price, first from $0.20 to $0.70. On July 29, 2019, FTT was listed on FTX with an opening price of $1, which later rose to $1.50. A few weeks later, Zhao contacted SBF, proposing to buy 20% of FTX for $80 million.