HONG KONG – FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried requested a $2-4 billion cash infusion from OKX on Monday morning, just before the takeover was announced by part of its arch-rival Binance — subsequently thwarted — a senior OKX executive said.
The troubled platform’s CEO had argued “a lot of urgency” in pursuing that amount of cash injection during a call on Nov. 8, as this would have helped FTX survive a short-term liquidity crunch, he said. Lennix Lai, director of financial markets at OKX.
FTX faces a total liability of $7 billion, Lai said, based on Bankman-Fried’s comment made on the call.
FTX contacted OKX to reach a settlement in the face of a series of withdrawal requests, Lai said, basing his information on several calls he had with Bankman-Fried on Nov. 8.
“If FTX doesn’t get an immediate cash injection, it will go bankrupt,” Lai said, referring to his conversation during a later call at 7am Hong Kong time.
“Sam said that he was talking to other potential investors, so he needed an urgent decision from us,” he said.