- While Bankman-Fried is fairly new to political spending, FTX exchange is not.
- Out of the donations of 100 CEOs, Bankman-Fried’s contribution was the second-largest.
- Despite Bankman-Fried’s contribution, Biden’s stance on cryptocurrencies remains unknown.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of FTX, a Hong Kong-based crypto derivatives exchange, donated £3.96 million to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. A report unveiled this news on October 28, noting that Biden’s campaign received a total of £60.51 million from his top-100 donors who described themselves as CEOs. Reportedly, Bankman-Fried made the second-largest contribution after Michael Bloomberg, the co-founder of Bloomberg LP, who donated £42.62 million.
According to the report, Bankman-Fried donated through Alameda, the market making and trading firm that he runs as CEO. While his contribution was significant, it is merely a drop in the bucket, seeing as Biden’s and Trump’s campaigns alongside their outside supporters raised approximately £1.67 billion.
Are you looking for fast-news, hot-tips and market analysis? Sign-up for the Invezz newsletter, today.
Although Bankman-Fried is relatively new when it comes to political spending, FTX has already dipped its feet into the sector. In February this year, the exchange developed a specialized futures contract that allowed traders to bet on Trump’s re-election. Named Trump-2020 (TRUMP), the contract expired to £0.76 if Trump wins this year’s presidential election, and £0 if he loses. Subsequently, the exchange rolled out a similar futures contract for Biden dubbed Biden 2020 (BIDEN).
Biden’s unclear stance on crypto
This news comes after Biden recently made his first and only public statement on bitcoin (BTC) to date. Reportedly, a hacker managed to break into the candidate’s Twitter account, promising to double any amount of BTC sent to a specified account within 30 means as a means of giving back to the community. The tweet prompted Biden to come out and declare that he does not have any BTC and that he would never ask for any.
Biden’s tweet read,
“I don’t have Bitcoin, and I’ll never ask you to send me any. But if you want to chip in to help make Donald Trump a one-term President, you can do that here.”
However, the provided link did not accept BTC, just US Dollars.
Unlike Biden, the incumbent president openly declared that he is not a crypto fan. In a 2019 tweet, Trump clearly unveiled his distaste for the crypto sector, noting,
“I am not a fan of Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies, which are not money, and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air. Unregulated Crypto Assets can facilitate unlawful behavior, including drug trade and other illegal activity.”
