By Angus Berwick
(Reuters) – Crypto exchange FTX saw around $6 billion of withdrawals in the 72 hours before Tuesday morning, according to a message to staff sent by its CEO Sam Bankman-Fried that was seen by Reuters.
The boss of major rival Binance said on Tuesday it has signed a non-binding agreement to buy FTX’s non-U.S. unit, FTX.com, to help cover a “liquidity crunch” at FTX.
“On an average day, we have tens of millions of dollars of net in/outflows. Things were mostly average until this weekend, a few days ago,” Bankman-Fried wrote in a message to staff sent on Tuesday morning.
“In the last 72 hours, we’ve had roughly $6b of net withdrawals from FTX.”
Withdrawals at FTX.com are “effectively paused”, he wrote, adding that would be resolved in “the near future”.
FTX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Angus Berwick in New York and Tom Wilson in London; Editing by Jan Harvey)
