The 2022 event marking the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and shaking crypto-linked markets was the FTX collapse.
In November 2022, reports questioned the financial condition of Alameda Research, a trading firm closely connected to FTX. Customers then rushed to withdraw funds, but the exchange could not meet those requests. FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States on November 11, 2022, and founder Sam Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive.
The failure damaged confidence across cryptocurrency markets and exposed concerns about customer-asset safeguards, corporate governance, and the relationship between FTX and Alameda. It was not a broad traditional stock-market crash like 1929 or 1987, but it became one of the most consequential collapses in digital-asset finance.
FTX is often confused with the earlier collapse of the Terra ecosystem. Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin and related token failed in May 2022; FTX’s exchange failure followed months later and involved a different corporate structure.