To our Algofam,
Like all of you, we have been watching the FTX catastrophe unfold over the past weeks.
First and foremost, we are saddened by the livelihoods damaged by FTX and its domino effects. We know some of you are among those affected, and our hearts go out to you.
We wanted to reach out to you, the community, to share an update on our interactions with FTX. The Algorand Foundation has never established a dedicated trading or custodial relationship with FTX, Alameda Research, or any affiliated companies. We have never received investment from Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX or Alameda Research, we have never been investors in them, and we have never co-invested with them.
We further investigated our secondary exposure. Counterparties - where we are a Limited Partner or have an Algo investment - have now likewise reported to us that they have no FTX exposure. Secondary exposure relies on third-party attestations, of course, which we have no reason to doubt.
We have determined that our only exposure is $1M that we held in an account to provide an on/off ramp for listing Algorand USDC (USDCa) on FTX. As you might know, we successfully listed USDCa on FTX just last month. These funds were allocated in the pursuit of growing adoption of USDCa, and it is a very small fraction of our total funds.
The collapse of FTX does not have a significant impact on USDCa; it is supported on KuCoin, OKX, Huobi, and MEXC, and another important listing announcement is soon to come.
As for how the industry moves forward, we have always believed that it is about real-world adoption, based on proven use cases. Central to this movement is the tenet “not your keys, not your coins,” and we encourage all community members to consider options for self-custody of digital assets like ALGO and USDCa including Ledger, MyAlgoWallet, or the Pera mobile wallet, to name a few.
Our goal at the Foundation is to empower a dynamic, inclusive, and borderless global ecosystem - at scale - based on the Algorand blockchain technology, and we will continue to do so through good times and bad.