Impact of FTX crash

FIVE-MINUTE GUIDE TO... CRYTO-CURRENCY COLLAPSE

- Harvey Jones

BITCOIN and other crypto-currencies are crashing yet again in a scandal that has robbed investors of billions and threatens to destroy the asset class for good.

It is another blow for the controversial concept of virtual money that can be devised out of thin air and sold to credulous investors.

Critics will be hoping this finally spells curtains for crypto, but it has survived in the past and could do so again. Since peaking at $67,000 (£56,000) a year ago, Bitcoin has now crashed by three quarters to just over $16,000 (£13,000) today.

Like any crash, this one has ruined reputations and a 30-year-old crypto former billionaire called Sam BankmanFried has been destroyed by this one.

In 2019 he founded FTX, the world’s second-largest crypto-currency exchange, where people buy and sell digital assets and was valued at £24billion in January.

People who really should have known better fell for his “eccentric genius” reputation, which saw the shaggy-haired boy wonder photographed only in shorts and untied trainers, and playing video games during business calls.