Sam Bankman-Fried says FTX's efforts to stem crypto contagion 'well worth it'

Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO and founder of prominent cryptocurrency exchange FTX, believes that his company's efforts to stop the ongoing crypto contagion by extending lines of credit to crypto lenders has been "well worth it," he said during a virtual fireside chat hosted by BTIG earlier in the week ended July 1. Of course, FTX isn't looking to intervene in all distressed crypto firms, as "some third-tier exchanges are already secretly insolvent," he told Forbes in an interview on June 29. The 30-year-old billionaire investor is expecting the number of platforms operating in the crypto industry to contract, followed by a "hopefully" more sustainable expansion, he told BTIG, adding that the reduction would be driven by firms shutting down. Furthermore, Bankman-Fried attributed bitcoin's (BTC-USD) recent slump to $30K to the Federal Reserve hiking interesting rates to bring down persistently high inflation. The central bank's "rate increases, and its indications that more would be on the way, have led to expectations of a reduction in money supply and less investable capital for risk assets including crypto," BTIG analyst Mark Palmer wrote in a note Friday, citing Bankman-Fried's remarks. Looking at idiosyncratic factors, bitcoin's (BTC-USD) subsequent drop to under $20K from $30K had been driven by idiosyncratic factors within the crypto space, namely the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin TerraUST (UST-USD) in May, followed by...