The key moments, with employee sentiment along the way.
2019
🌱
2019
Founded by Sam Bankman-Fried
An exchange spun up alongside his trading firm, Alameda Research.
Wikipedia
Jul 2021
🦄
Jul 2021
$900M round — crypto's biggest raise$18B
The Series B values the two-year-old exchange at $18B.
Reuters
Jan 2022
📈
Jan 2022
The peak — Super Bowl ads, stadium names$32B
A $400M round values FTX at $32B; the brand is everywhere from Miami's arena to Larry David's ad spot.
CNBC
Nov 2 ’22
Nov 2 ’22
CoinDesk leaks Alameda's balance sheet
Much of the trading firm's equity turns out to be FTX's own token.
CoinDesk
Nov 8 ’22
Nov 8 ’22
Binance walks; withdrawals freeze
A rescue deal collapses within a day, and customers can't get their money out.
Reuters
Nov 11 ’22
🪦
Nov 11 ’22
Chapter 11 — joins the Unitard Club 💔
Nine days from rumor to bankruptcy; Bankman-Fried resigns as CEO the same day.
Court filing
Dec 2022
Dec 2022
Bankman-Fried arrested in the Bahamas
DOJ SDNY
2022–23
💬
From the inside · Glassdoor reviews, 2022–23
Post-collapse reviews read like obituaries — staff mourned savings they'd kept on the exchange. Before, the gripes were cult-like secrecy and a founder-only public voice.
Nov 2023
Nov 2023
Convicted of fraud on all seven counts
DOJ SDNY
Mar 2024
Mar 2024
Sentenced to 25 years
DOJ SDNY
$32Bof peak value erased · 3 years
💬 entries paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗; dated facts carry their source.
How it happened
FTX was a major cryptocurrency exchange that peaked at a ~$32B valuation in early 2022. It collapsed in November 2022 after revelations that customer funds had been misused via affiliated trading firm Alameda Research, triggering a liquidity crisis and Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud in 2023 and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Employee reviews show no one inside saw the fraud: pre-collapse complaints centered on cult-like secrecy and a founder-only public voice, with glowing marks for the pay and Bahamas perks — then post-collapse reviews turned into rueful obituaries from staff who had lost their own savings held on the exchange.
Employee accounts paraphrase anonymous, unverified reviews posted publicly on Glassdoor ↗. See our methodology.
