Rise and fall of crypto exchange FTX

(Reuters) - Crypto exchange FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States on Friday following its spectacular collapse that has sent shivers through the industry.

The U.S. bankruptcy proceedings involve multiple FTX group companies with more than 100,000, and possibly over 1 million, creditors.

Here is a history of FTX since its foundation in 2019:

2019:

May - Former Wall Street trader Sam Bankman-Fried and ex-Google employee Gary Wang founded FTX, the owner and operator of FTX.COM cryptocurrency exchange.

2021:

July - A $900 million funding round valued FTX at $18 billion.

September - FTX signed a sponsorship deal with Mercedes' Formula 1 team.

October - FTX raised capital at a valuation of $25 billion from investors including Singapore's Temasek and Tiger Global.

2022:

Jan. 27 - FTX's U.S. arm said it was valued at $8 billion after raising $400 million in its first funding round from investors including SoftBank Group and Temasek.

Jan. 31 - FTX raised $400 million from investors including SoftBank at a valuation of $32 billion.

June 4 - FTX signed a reportedly $135 million sponsorship deal for naming rights of the Miami Heat's home court.

July 1 - FTX signed a deal with an option to buy embattled crypto lender BlockFi for up to $240 million.

July 22 - FTX offered a partial bailout of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital. Voyager called it a "low-ball bid".

Aug. 19 - A U.S. bank regulator ordered FTX to halt "false and misleading" claims it had made about whether funds at the company are insured by the government.

Nov. 2 - Crypto news website CoinDesk reported a leaked balance sheet that showed Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's crypto trading firm, was heavily dependent on FTX's native token, FTT. Reuters was unable to verify the report.

Nov. 6 - Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said his firm would liquidate its holdings of FTT due to unspecified "recent revelations".

Nov. 7 - Bankman-Fried said "FTX is fine. Assets are fine".

Nov. 8 - Binance said it was planning a deal to acquire FTX.

Nov. 9 - Binance decided against pursuing a nonbinding agreement to bail out FTX.

Nov. 10 - FTX suspended on-boarding of new clients as well as withdrawals until further notice

Nov. 10 - Bankman-Fried told staff in a memo that he was seeking a capital raising and had held talks with Justin Sun, founder of the crypto token Tron.

Nov. 10 - Reuters reported that Bankman-Fried was seeking to put together a rescue package of up to $9.4 billion for FTX.

Nov. 11 - FTX started voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the United States, along with its U.S. unit, crypto trading firm Alameda Research and nearly 130 other affiliates. Bankman-Fried resigns as CEO.

Nov. 12 - Reuters reported at least $1 billion of customer funds have vanished from FTX.

Nov. 12 - FTX said it had detected unauthorized transactions. Blockchain analytics firms estimated outflows between $473 million and $659 million in "suspicious circumstances".

Nov. 13 - Bahamas securities regulator launched a probe over collapse of FTX.

Nov. 14 - Reuters reported that U.S. prosecutors in New York were probing FTX's collapse.

Nov. 15 - Financial regulators in the Bahamas appointed liquidators to run FTX's unit in the country.

Nov. 16 - FTX outlined a "severe liquidity crisis" in U.S. bankruptcy filings, which showed the group could have more than 1 million creditors.

Nov. 16 - A court filing showed FTX's Bahamas unit, FTX Digital Markets, was seeking protection from creditors in the U.S. under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

Nov. 16 - Bankman-Fried was sued in a U.S. court by investors alleging the company's yield-bearing crypto accounts violated Florida law.

Nov. 16 - Liquidators for FTX Digital Markets "reject the validity" of FTX's U.S. bankruptcy proceedings.

Nov. 16 - Major crypto player Genesis Global Capital suspended customer redemptions in its lending business, citing the sudden failure of FTX.

Nov. 17 - The U.S. House Financial Services Committee said it planned to hold a hearing in December to investigate the collapse of FTX.

Here is a list of FTX's investors since 2019, according to private market data provider PitchBook.

2019 Tiger Global Management, Insight Partners, SoftBank

Inves Investment Advisors, Temasek, Telstra Ventures,

tors Teachers Venture Growth, Steadview Capital Management,

Redline DAO, Paradigm, New Enterprise Associates,

Lightspeed Ventures, 500 Global, Binance Labs,

Consensus Lab, FBG Capital, Galois Capital, Greylock

Capital Management, Lemniscap, Race Capital, IVP, HOF

Capital

2020 Bitscale Capital, BR Capital, Evangelion Capital,

Inves Exnetwork Capital, Genblock Capital, Insignius

tors Capital, Pantera Capital

2021 BlackRock, Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Samsung NEXT

Inves Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Base10

tors Partners, Astronaut Capital, AGE Crypto, Vetamer

Capital, Senator Investment Group, Sea Capital,

Paradigm, Meritech Capital Partners, ICONIQ Growth,

Third Point Ventures, Thoma Bravo, Kevin O'Leary,

Willoughby Capital, Digital Currency Group, Third

Point, Tribe Capital, Bond Capital, Standard

Investments, Circle , Ribbit Capital, Multicoin

Capital, Mayfield, 6ixth Event, Abstract Ventures,

Alan Howard, Altimeter Capital Management, Bond,

Schoeneck & King, DHVC, Israel Englander, Mark VC

2022 Temasek, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Ontario Teachers

Inves Pension Plan, K5 Global, MiH Ventures, Mint Ventures,

tors NKB Ventures, Signum Capital, Alchemy Ventures, Lux

Capital, Fenrir, Claritas Capital, Hard Yaka, Early

Capital Group, Chapter One Ventures, One Block

Capital, Chainfund Capital, A'Z Angels, Allied

Investors Group, ArkStream Capital

(Compiled by Harish Sridharan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Christopher Cushing)