FTX U.S. president steps down
Brett Harrison, the president of crypto exchange FTX's U.S. subsidiary (FTX U.S.), announced Wednesday he will step down from his role.
"Over the next few months I’ll be transferring my responsibilities and moving into an advisory role at the company," Harrison said on Twitter, noting he will work to ensure his transition is smooth so FTX ends 2022 with "all its characteristic momentum."
Harrison plans to stay in the industry to help improve the crypto market's maturing market structure but did not offer specifics about what's doing next.
"This industry is at a number of crossroads. The one that matters most to me, as a financial technologist, is the intersection of the arrival of larger market participants, and the increasing fragmentation and technological complexity of the market’s landscape," Harrison said.
1/ An announcement: I’m stepping down as President of @FTX_Official. Over the next few months I’ll be transferring my responsibilities and moving into an advisory role at the company.
— Brett Harrison (@Brett_FTX) September 27, 2022
According to crypto data indexer Nomics, FTX currently holds the industry seat as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume year to date.
On Tuesday, bankrupt crypto lender Voyager announced it had accepted FTX U.S.'s $1.4 billion bid for its assets after a two-week long auction process involving other industry players such as major exchange Binance and asset manager Wave Financial, according to sources familiar with the matter.
FTX U.S., the exchange's U.S. arm that follows the jurisdiction's regulatory standards for crypto exchanges, is the 19th largest crypto exchange by volume for the same period.
If approved by creditors, FTX U.S.'s purchase of Voyager assets could net the exchange more retail trading volume from U.S. based Voyager customers should they plan to continue trading crypto.
In February, FTX U.S. entered the retail equities broker trading business by offering stock trading, which isn't accounted for in crypto volume tracking.
The firm has also logged a number of acquisitions including a $680 million purchase of financially distressed crypto lender BlockFi earlier this summer as well as Embed and LedgerX.
"The technological frictions that will occur at that intersection, and how effectively they’re reduced, will be a critical factor in determining the future growth and stability of crypto markets: their liquidity, their capitalization, their resilience, their utility," Harrison went on to say over Twitter.
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David Hollerith is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance covering the cryptocurrency and stock markets. Follow him on Twitter at @DsHollers
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