Crypto Exchange FTX US reported great growth during 2021 third quarter with an average daily trading volume of approximately $360 billion, a 512% jump from the second quarter.
FTX US’ user count surged 52% quarter-over-quarter, increased its headcount by 30%, and held about 4.5% of the U.S. crypto spot market’s volume by September 30th, a 2% increase compared to the beginning of the quarter. The company has reached a total value of $25 billion.
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Brett Harrison, President of FTX US, commented during a Yahoo Finance interview:
The trust and support of our user base has allowed FTX US to become the fastest growing and most in-demand crypto exchange in the US, but we have barely scratched the surface. We will continue to improve our existing offerings and rapidly expand into new areas, including derivatives, NFTs, and payment services.
Institutions Make 60% Of FTX US’s Trading Volume
The growth shows a contrast with the Q3 report from crypto exchange giant Coinbase, which showed a 29.2% drop in their trading volume and a transacting user count decrease of 16%, from 8.8 million to 7.4 million quarter-over-quarter.
The main difference between FTX US and Coinbase, Harrison explained, is that the latter sees more retail volume, while 60% of FTX US’s volume comes from institutions like hedge funds, high-frequency and proprietary trading firms.
FTX had great brand exposure and marketing strategy during Q3. Harrison stated that the successful numbers are partially owed to the sports partnerships with distinguished athletes such as Tom Brady -and his wife, Gisele Bündchen-, alliances with Major League Baseball and the Miami Heat, as well as the weight of institutional investors in the platform.
Harrison commented to a news portal: “We’re now really being able to activate those partnerships and use them to advertise for our brand, to run promotions, to run giveaways and get people excited about signing up for our product,”
He also commented on FTX US’s aim to expand into the NFTs ecosystem, having recently launched a Solana-based NFTs marketplace of their own that focuses on providing “simpler, safer and easier tools to remove the barriers (…) to enter the NFT space”.
Their NFT project interconnects with the alliances with the athletes:
Many of our partnerships with these athletes involve NFTs and intellectual property that can be used for NFTs in some way, to really be able to activate those and bring exclusive NFTs to the FTX marketplace that no one else has, we really want to improve our offering there.
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FTX US Role On Crypto Regulatory Policies
During the third quarter, attracted by the crypto derivatives trading volume, FTX US acquired LedgerX, now rebranded as FTX US Derivatives.
The acquisition has the purpose of offering retail and investors clients licensed crypto futures and options, as well as utilizing it as a shortcut to not spend “what could have been years” to receive licenses. This brought growth of demand from enthusiastic institutional customers.
Brett Harrison further commented on the subject:
FTX US Derivatives, will enable us to provide licensed crypto futures and options to our retail and institutional customers and has placed us in the unique position to reshape the US derivatives market. To achieve our goals, we will be in constant communication with regulatory agencies and are hoping to play a central role in defining crypto regulatory policy in the US.
