This chart does a pretty good job of summarizing how 2021 went for FTX.
But there’s a lot of background that went into achieving the growth displayed above, so let’s dig in. 2021 was a transformative year for FTX. Going into it we were valued at $1bn with no VC investment, had yet to hit the million user mark, and had never done any marketing or a single advertisement; all of which is somewhat understandable for a company that hadn’t even existed for 2 years.
As we move into 2022, we’re valued at $25bn after raising the largest round in the history of crypto from some of the best firms in the world. In addition, we not only cruised past the 1mm user mark, but also 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, and 5mm users; have partnered with many of the biggest names in sports and launched an ad campaign resulting in FTX being named one of the top 10 marketers of the year; became the first crypto-native firm to obtain licensing for crypto derivatives; and we had our second birthday!
We are extremely thankful for the support we have received from the crypto community and our partners which has allowed us to grow to where we are today. We’d love to share some of our accomplishments over the last year with everyone and some of what’s to come in 2022.
Growth
Volume:
Following a strong end to the year in 2020, 2021 kicked things off with a bang leading to a huge increase in volumes across the board for FTX. By the end of February, more volume had been traded on FTX than in its entire history going into 2021 (404bn vs 401bn) and by May, our 30 day volume had also eclipsed that number. We ended the year with ~11.5x more volume than 2019-2020 combined.
Spot volumes saw the largest increase year over year with a total of $719,000,000,000 traded, marking a near 2400% increase over 2020 volumes. In fact, spot markets in 2021 alone traded ~180% of FTX’s total 2019-2020 volume across spot, futures, perpetuals, options, leveraged tokens, and all other markets combined. A lot of this can be attributed to the dramatic uptake of our spot margin market that we launched in Dec. 2020 which quickly grew to become the largest P2P borrow/lending market in the crypto industry. At its peak, over >$8,000,000,000 was tied up in outstanding borrows.
Some quick fun facts:
24hr volume peaked at over $60bn during the massive move on May 18th, a 850% increase over our 2020 ATH. Spot markets, however, saw their highest volume day on November 12th with $13.8bn traded, a 1690% increase from our 2020 spot ATH, and nearly a 2x increase of our 2020 ATH for futures & spot.
Avg. daily volume on FTX for 2021 was >$12,500,000,000, >175% higher than our ATH 24hr volume coming into 2021, and 1187% higher than our 2020 ADV.
Users:
Along with the volumes came even larger increases to our user base. FTX is happy to have over 5mm users as part of the FTX family. Registrations saw a 1500% increase over 2020. We had nearly as many 1d active users on FTX in 2021 as we had total sign ups during all of last year.
FTX.us in particular enjoyed insane levels of growth in 2021, with >12,100% increase of its user base during 2021. In a single day during December FTX.us saw registrations exceed 745% of its entire user base as of Jan 1st 2021, 2021.
Employees:
To support all the growth we’ve seen in users, volume, products, and across the exchange in general, we’ve aggressively hired across all teams within FTX. We started the year with 72 employees and have nearly tripled the workforce heading into 2022.
Some of the amazing hires we’ve made this year include our President of FTX US, Brett Harrison, a former exec at Citadel; Mark Wetjen, former CFTC Commissioner, joining FTX US as Head of Policy and Regulatory Strategy; Jonathan Cheesman, former HSBC executive, now leads our institutional outreach; Ryne Miller, former Sullivan & Cromwell partner and counsel to CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler, joining FTX US as General Counsel; Nick Beckstead, who helped create the Centre for Effective Altruism and serves on the board there joined as the CEO of FTX Foundation following a seven -year stint at Open Philanthropy; and many many more. We are very excited to see what we can accomplish with the added manpower in the coming year.
We have worked hard to maintain the quality and cohesiveness of our team and been very careful to avoid the pitfalls of becoming a company with a bloated headcount and workforce.
Fundraise
Commensurate with our volume and revenue growth, we also grew our network of investors and partners. FTX raised over $1.4B in Series B and B-1 from notable investors like Temasek, Sequoia, Paradigm, SoftBank, Tiger Global and almost 100 other illustrious partners at a final equity valuation of $25B.
An equally important effort in 2021 was to make sure the equity ownership reflects the value created by our partners. As a consequence of that goal, SBF bought back equity from some of the early passive investors. Currently, over 90% of FTX’s equity ownership is held by the founders and employees.
FTX Digital Markets + Regulation
FTX has always taken a very collaborative approach with regulators which has allowed us to avoid some of the pitfalls other major exchanges have experienced. In 2021 FTX obtained licensure in the Bahamas under the D.A.R.E Act of 2020. This momentous achievement made FTX the first major crypto exchange to obtain a license to offer derivatives and paved the way for FTX to work with regulatory bodies globally to enhance crypto frameworks in a safe way. SBF shared some of his thoughts on how crypto companies can work in a collaborative fashion with regulators, which can be seen on ftxpolicy.com
The Bahamas became the clear choice as the home for the global headquarters of FTX. The Government of The Bahamas can best be described as friendly and welcoming. This remains evident in the relationship shared between Prime Minister Philip Davis and SBF. Additionally, the willingness of government and national leaders to collaborate with FTX creates an ideal model for how to build mutually beneficial relationships.
FTX has made a significant contribution to The Bahamas as part of the development of the country as a global hub for digital asset businesses and innovators. By the end of 2021 FTX contributed over $10,000,000 to various organizations throughout the Bahamas. The organizations who have benefited from sponsorship and funding include both government and non-government entities. A partial list of recipients include:
- The Ministry of Education & Technical & Vocational Training
- The Ministry of Health & Wellness
- The Bahamas Feeding Network
- The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism
- The University of The Bahamas
- The Bahamas National Trust
- The Cancer Society of The Bahamas
- The Bahamas Humane Society
- The Grand Bahama Children’s Home
- The Ranfurly Home for Children
- Lend a Hand Bahamas
- The Salvation Army
- Bishop Lawrence Rolle
- Hands for Hunger
FTX has spent over $100 million dollars on the acquisition of real estate, residences and land for the FTX headquarters. It is anticipated that the construction cost of the FTX headquarters will be in the region of $100 million dollars, which will be a significant boost to the economic sustainability of The Bahamas
The new FTX Headquarters will begin construction in the first quarter of 2022. This multipurpose space will consist of office and commercial spaces, along with a boutique hotel and conference center, gymnasium, childcare facilities and other innovative public spaces. The groundbreaking for the site is planned for early 2022.
New Products & Platform Improvements
New L1 support:
In 2021 we added support for some of the largest ecosystems in the space including BSC, AVAX, and DOT, all of which are now available for deposits, withdrawals, spot trading, and are usable as collateral on FTX. In addition, we’ve added support for a range of tokens on BSC and AVAX, will continue to expand the assets we support on these chains. And last but not least we’ve continued our staunch support of the Solana ecosystem by adding Wormhole deposits/withdrawals for most SPL supported tokens.
We also added support for the burgeoning fan token market with the support of the CHZ blockchain and listed markets for a number of their fan tokens, including $INTER, $PSG, $BAR, and more.
FTX App:
One of our biggest focuses moving into 2021 was to make a purpose-built app to facilitate the onboarding of the next wave of entrants into the crypto ecosystem. Our goal is to create a retail-friendly app that allows for anyone to get involved, whether that’s through education, making their first crypto purchase, or exploring the burgeoning NFT ecosystem, all without having to pay the high fees associated with most of the popular services that exist today. This mission began in 2020 with the acquisition of Blockfolio and started to come to fruition in 2021 with the launch of in-app trading in January and the rebrand to FTX App over the summer. FTX App has been at the forefront of our marketing initiatives and will continue to be a large focus of FTX moving into 2022. The next step is merging the FTX App with FTX systems so accounts can be shared across the more advanced exchange and the more retail friendly app.
Integrated Support Center:
As users and volumes grow, inevitably so do support tickets. To better handle the needs of our users and get back to users in a timely fashion, we moved away from cumbersome emails to an integrated on-exchange ticketing system. This puts full control of the support experience in our hands and allows us to continually improve the connection between the FTX account and the support experience. This allowed us to maintain the quality of our customer support while the exchange grew incredibly quickly, a difficult feat in the crypto industry.
Our support team doubled in size roughly every quarter and this new integrated support system allowed us to streamline the support experience and provide real solutions as quickly as possible.
Exchange improvements:
Increasing the performance and throughput of the site is a never-ending endeavor, and is particularly important when our platform is welcoming millions of new users and experiencing double-digit multiples in volume growth. To that end, much of this year’s focus product-wise was on improving the underlying infrastructure of FTX. We’ve made massive strides in improving the matching engine throughput and server capacity for the exchange, allowing us to hit ATHs in 24hr volume, active users on the site, and increased activity in general. These improvements aren’t as sexy as new products, but are of crucial importance to our continued growth and are our main priority as we move in 2022.
That being said, we did also release a number of smaller features, products, and UX/UI upgrades, such as:
Google SSO: you can now sign up (and sign in) for an FTX account through your existing Google account.
Collateral explainer: On ftx.com/wallet, you’ll see a new tab called “Collateral Explainer”, this page provides everything you need to know about your funds on the exchange. Included on this page is how much collateral each asset held contributes; a breakdown of how much of your funds are tied up as collateral for open futures positions, spot margin borrow positions, spot margin loans, open orders, staking, etc; You’ll also see a brief summary of this information if you hover over any of your available balances on the main wallet page!
Rewards page to see how much you’ve made over the lifetime of your account on futures pnl, lending rewards, staking rewards, and referrals.
Historical balance snapshots allowing for better auditing of your account and easy reference to your account balances of a particular date/time.
Additional crypto assets supported for collateral: We’ve further increased the number of assets available to be used as collateral. As of today 123 assets are available to be used as collateral for futures and spot margin trading.
Improved payment rails: we added automated SIGNET deposits/withdrawals as well as instant SEPA deposits. We already have a number of new integrations in progress for improved SEPA payments and hope to have faster payments live for GBP in the coming months. And automation of SEN deposits/withdrawals is slated to go live in the first couple weeks of January.
NFTs: With the unprecedented growth of the NFT market in 2021, it was clear that our users had a demand for the ability to trade these new assets in-house. In response to this excitement, we built a first-in-class NFT marketplace that supports both ETH and SOL NFTs, the first of its kind. Users in the US and internationally now have the ability to display, buy, sell, and mint their own NFTs without incurring the gas fees that come with on-chain trading. The technology that brought this marketplace to life now lends itself well to allowing partners and reputable projects to release their NFTs on-site using a randomized primary sale mechanism. The partners and projects that we work with can now leverage our infrastructure to provide their own randomized primary sales with the convenience of reliable fiat onramps and diligent KYC. Our goal with the marketplace moving forward is to continue to build liquidity and features to become the premier infrastructure provider for NFT creation, issuance, and trading.
FTX Pay: We’ve designed FTX Pay to be extremely customizable and allow merchants to receive payments according to their specific needs. We welcome all merchants, whether your operations are crypto or non-crypto related, in joining us in our initiative to become the premier payment platform for everyone.
We have seen many different groups integrate FTX Pay into their businesses, from charities looking to accept crypto as donations, to retail merchants allowing users to pay for goods via cryptocurrency. Despite the product still being in its infancy, we’ve already seen major adoption from small and large merchants alike; our partners at TSMFTX added the ability to use FTX Pay for their merch; and following our partnership in October with PMG on the highly anticipated E11even Residences and Waldorf Astoria Residences located in Miami, we’ve already seen multiple condos acquired using FTX Pay! We’ve received a lot of interest from the real estate industry for transacting in crypto and we’ll continue to grow this side of the business in the new year.
Regulatory and Licensing Activities
We continued our commitment to regulatory compliance by acquiring a variety of licenses in the United States and abroad:
FTX US acquired LedgerX (now FTX US Derivatives), a CFTC-registered Designated Contract Market (DCM), Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO), and Swap Execution Facility (SEF), allowing FTX US to offer regulated derivatives products in the United States and other jurisdictions that recognize CFTC licenses, and work towards a more unified spot and derivatives user experience in highly regulated jurisdictions.
FTX Digital Markets became the first digital assets business to be registered under the Bahamas Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act, allowing it to provide a variety of products and services to customers in a regulated manner.
FTX completed its acquisition of Zubr Exchange Limited, a licensed Digital Ledger Technology provider in Gibraltar.
In addition, we are continuing to work with regulators in over a dozen other jurisdictions worldwide for us to become licensed and regulated in these jurisdictions, allowing us to better serve our global customer base worldwide.
Partnerships
A key component of our efforts to bring crypto into the mainstream was partnerships with sports leagues, teams, and athletes. In 2021 FTX became the first crypto company to land the naming rights to a stadium, the first to sign a deal with a Big 4 sports league, and first to pay for a collegiate partnership entirely in crypto. We are extremely proud of the work we’ve done on the partnerships side and are very happy to have a number of our amazing partners join FTX as stakeholders. We’ve highlighted some of what we’ve accomplished with our partners below, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. A more encompassing blog post will be shared in the coming week.
Mercedes F1:
FTX entered into a partnership with Mercedes Formula 1 and its drivers in the midst of the 2021 season as the official cryptocurrency partner. The FTX logo was featured on the drivers’ hats and had prime placement on the car with amazing visibility from the driver view. Lewis Hamilton dominated all season and was involved in a series of thrilling moments, generating extensive FTX brand exposure throughout the season.
Mercedes F1 went on to win their 8th consecutive Constructors championship. A world record and amazing feat for Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, Toto Wolff and the entire organization.
As 2022 rolls around expect to see Mercedes F1 further embrace cryptocurrency through payments, NFTs and corporate social responsibility.
MLB:
FTX and MLB finalized a historic multi-year partnership earlier in the year, which made FTX the Official Crypto Exchange of MLB and marked the first major crypto partnership with a “big four” sports league in the US.
For the first time in MLB’s history, MLB umpires donned a patch on their uniform, featuring the FTX logo, which started at the 2021 MLB All-Star Game. Umpires will continue to wear the FTX logo on their uniform for years to come, making FTX part of every exchange, every at-bat and every play. During the All Star game, we saw a massive spike in Google search trends for FTX as a result of this:
As part of our Moonblasts campaign, we gave away $100k to baseball fans who picked the player and distance of the longest homerun in the 2021 season. During the postseason, we continued the Moonblasts campaign by donating $10k to charity for every home run hit >425ft, and upped the number to $100k during the World Series. This resulted in $550,000 being donated to four charities.
FTX Arena:
FTX became the first company in the crypto industry to name an arena. This helped legitimize the FTX brand and gave the massive fanbase of basketball exposure to the crypto industry as a whole. Today, you’ll see many sports brands partner with companies in crypto but this was not the case when FTX broke down the barrier in April 2021.
Oct 21, 2021, marked the opening night for FTX Arena. The Miami Heat defeated the Milwaukee Bucks in impressive fashion. Everyone in attendance received a commemorative t-shirt with a QR code linked to a limited edition NFT redeemable in the FTX APP that memorializes the historic night. At more than 41 Heat Home games and world-class concerts like Marc Anthony, J Cole, Andrea Bocelli, up to 21,000 fans at each event become part of the FTX Arena experience.
Tom Brady & Gisele Bundchen:
FTX commenced a long-term partnership with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and supermodel and entrepreneur Gisele Bündchen. As part of this historic deal, Tom and Gisele have each become FTX shareholders and will both receive crypto as part of their compensation. Tom serves as an Ambassador for FTX and Gisele has taken on the role of FTX’s Environmental & Social Initiatives Advisor.
As global icons, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen taking an equity stake and having an active role at FTX further solidifies our status as the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange.
Tom and Gisele also both starred in FTX’s acclaimed national ad campaigns, and played a large part in FTX being named to Ad Age’s Best Marketers of 2021 list.
FTX, Gisele and Tom have also committed to providing an annual multi-million-dollar contribution to charity throughout the duration of the partnership. In the spirit of effective altruism, Gisele will work closely with the FTX group to determine which charities could have the greatest positive impact.
Stephen Curry:
FTX started a long-term partnership with three-time NBA champion, two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, philanthropist and entrepreneur, Stephen Curry. In connection with being an FTX global ambassador, Curry will receive an equity stake in FTX and Curry’s foundation, Eat.Learn.Play., will partner with FTX on charitable initiatives.
The partnership with FTX marks Curry’s first investment in the cryptocurrency space as the burgeoning entrepreneur continues to diversify his growing portfolio.
FTX helped launch Stephen’s first-ever NFT drop – The 2974 Collection – celebrating his 3-point record, raising over $2.5M for underprivileged youth in the process.
TSM|FTX:
In June of 2021, FTX partnered with TSM, the most dominant–and at the time of the partnership valuable–esports organization in the world and secured exclusive naming rights with TSM changing their name to TSM|FTX. The new name is featured on all social channels, YouTube, twitch stream overlays and their competitive uniform, which combined drive 5-6B impressions per quarter.
In addition, FTX sponsored TSM: Legends episodes, and the TSM team has created custom content for FTX. The first year of the partnership culminates with the TSM Investment Challenge, in which TSM athletes and personalities as well as top influencers square off in a crypto investment challenge. Fans will be able to follow along and support their favorite TSM team member, and there will be many opportunities to win prizes ranging from merch, to crypto, to NFTs.
With this strategic partnership, TSM FTX embarks on a new set of industry-leading initiatives and specifically seeks to invest these resources into Esports and gaming over the next five years.
Shohei Ohtani:
Shortly into the MLB off-season we partnered with Shohei Ohtani, the 2021 AL MVP, recipient of the Commissioner’s Historic Achievement Award (which is very seldomly bestowed award), and 2021 Moonblast Champion. Shohei is a once in a lifetime talent, dominating on both sides of the field, leading him to be the first player in history to start the All Star Game as both a pitcher and hitter. His 2021 season was ranked as the best performance in a season of any player, in any sport, in history. We are truly honored to be working with such an amazing athlete, and to bring him onto our cap table as an investor. We look forward to working with Shohei on bringing the FTX brand to his burgeoning fanbase, as well as on a number of charitable aspects that Shohei is particularly interested in.
Golden State Warriors:
The Golden State Warriors and FTX officially launched their partnership in 2022 with the unveiling of the FTX logo on the court at the Chase Center. As the Warriors’ Official Cryptocurrency Platform and NFT Marketplace, the franchise will drop NFTs on FTX.us beginning in early 2022. The partnership between the Warriors and FTX marks the first international rights partner for the Warriors, meaning the GSW and FTX will have a visible market presence, inclusive of logo and likeness, internationally.
The deal also included the Warriors’ G League team, the Golden Guardians and Warriors Gaming Squad (affiliated esports teams), in-arena signage at Chase Center, and virtual floor signage at Warriors games.
To kick off the partnership, FTX also donated 1 bitcoin each to 3 local charities in the Bay Area, focused on educational equity.
Washington Wizards, Capital and Mystics:
To wrap up our year of partnerships, in December we partnered with Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the owners of the Washington Wizards, Capital, and Mystics. FTX is now the official crypto platform, and the official NFT marketplace for each of these teams. While we’ve done a few partnerships in the NBA, this is our first with an NHL and WNBA team, giving us partnerships in each of the Big 4 sports leagues. To be able to work with three teams in a thriving market like Washington DC opens up a lot of opportunities to push forward our mission.
RIOT:
FTX embarked on a 7 year partnership with Riot Games as a sponsor of the League Championship Series. Through the sponsorship – the largest sponsorship of an esports league to date – FTX will directly sponsor the Most Improved Player award, collaborate on NFT initiatives in the future, and have logo placements throughout the broadcast, specifically around player net worth, total team gold and gold graphs
International Cricket Council:
We kicked off the 3-year partnership with the ICC during the Men’s T20 World Cup. The event delivered a record of viewership globally (record consumption of 15.9Bn minutes in Star Network India alone).
As part of this deal, we partnered with UNICEF, the ICC charity partner, at the semis and finals to put on a successful fundraiser.
We also launched the #ftxicc sign up campaign with a focus on Indian and Middle Eastern users.
FTX Field at Cal Memorial Stadium:
Cal Athletics and FTX partnered for the first-ever collegiate naming rights deal paid 100% in crypto. This historic, 10-year agreement, will be paid entirely in crypto. As part of the deal, FTX receives naming rights to the field at California Memorial Stadium, which will be known as FTX Field at California Memorial Stadium. In the inaugural season, FTX gave away over $20k in crypto through the stadium activations, hosted punt catching contests, and a digital scavenger hunt around campus that included an NFT prize as well.
Trevor Lawrence:
FTX signed a multi-year partnership with the #1 draft pick in the NFL for 2021, Trevor Lawrence. Trevor is a generational athletic talent and is widely expected to be one of the most significant names in football going forward.
As part of the deal, Lawrence received part of his sponsorship in crypto directly to his FTX app. This was the first known endorsement deal of its kind, in which an athlete received a significant portion of their signing bonus in cryptocurrency.
Lawrence and FTX also made a joint $100,000 donation to a children’s charity in Trevor’s hometown to commemorate the deal.
Kevin O’Leary:
We signed a deal with Mr. Wonderful, Kevin O’Leary, making him a brand ambassador. As part of the deal, he invested his own funds in FTX, becoming a shareholder..
Mr. Wonderful partnered with FTX to give a talk on Web 3.0 for the Singapore Fintech Festival, which was attended by many of Asia’s top bankers and central bankers, helping bridge the gap between the traditional finance world and crypto.
He is also serving as a judge for the FTX Charity Hackathon in Miami coming up in March of 2022.
FTX Champions:
With the recent change in NIL marketing regulations in the NCAA, FTX launched the Champions program which enrolled student athletes as ambassadors. This included UK basketball players, BYU football players, FSU Softball players, and UCLA Women’s basketball players. The SFU softball deal is the first NIL deal ever to be paid fully in crypto.
One of our initial sponsorships was Deshaun Highler at Sacramento State. Deshaun rose to prominence on the Netflix series Last Chance U. Through the FTX Champions program, he has shared his journey into crypto via his social media presence, creating unique content and ultimately reaching over 500,000 via socials.
To assist with our FTX Champions initiative we have partnered with Dreamfield which will allow us to broaden reach, target more specific campuses, and offer crypto as a form of payment to all athletes on the Dreamfield platform.
Udonis Haslem:
Udonis Haslem, the Captain of the Miami HEAT and Miami legend, became an FTX global ambassador. Through this partnership, we are reinforcing FTX’s commitment to the Miami community.
UD starred in FTX’s “You In, Miami?” campaign that launched at the start of the 2021 - 2022 Miami HEAT season.
This partnership is just beginning, and there are a number of exciting and impactful community initiatives with Udonis and FTX on the horizon starting in early 2022.
David Ortiz:
FTX partnered with 3x World Series Champion and 10x MLB All-Star, David Ortiz, to further promote crypto education amongst MLB fans and maximize charitable impact.
Ortiz became a multi-year FTX Global Ambassador and also accepted payment for his sponsorship entirely in crypto through the FTX App.
With Ortiz also being one of the core talent broadcasters on FOX Sports’s MLB coverage, Ortiz played an integral part in the success of our first-ever MLB Postseason campaign.
FTX also became the presenting partner of the David Ortiz Celebrity Golf Classic, which is Ortiz’s annual charitable event that benefits the David Ortiz Children’s Fund – and raised over $1.36MM for the Fund at this year’s event.
Albane Valenzuela:
Albane Valenzuela, a Swiss professional golfer, became the first female athlete brand ambassador for FTX & the first professional golfer to be added to the roster
She is a Stanford graduate and two-time Olympian who primarily resides in The Bahamas
As part of this sponsorship, Albane will be repping an FTX-branded golf bag at all professional tournaments, introducing our brand to the LPGA fanbase.
We are excited about this partnership as it allows us to tap into a new demographic, increasing brand awareness and encouraging FTX user growth for a younger subset of females and golf enthusiasts.
Advertising
FTX moved assertively into consumer marketing and advertising this year, driven mainly by our sports and athlete partnerships. We debuted our first national ads “There’s a Price to Waiting” on TBS during The Match, pitting our partner Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson against Aaron Rodgers and Bryce Dechambeau in July. We followed up on these initial ads in September with our first national advertising campaign - “You In?” featuring Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen. This ad was a massive success, with the ad outperforming all but one other during the NFL game of its first airing, resulting in nearly 500,000 searches for FTX in the minutes following the two ads. As we moved into the fall we highlighted our MLB partnership during the postseason with the “Moonman” campaign, generating lots of interest across social media. By December, FTX was receiving over 1,000,000,000 impressions a month across channels.
This all culminated with Ad Age naming FTX one of its Top 10 Marketers of the Year in December, making FTX by far the youngest company to ever win this distinction. This was a recognition not only of the billions of impressions that our campaigns and partnerships garnered, but of the innovative approaches that served as a model for other companies in the space.
Heading into 2022, the marketing and advertising team has expanded to include leading specialists in performance advertising, influencer, affiliate marketing and more.
We will kick off our 2022 campaigns with a Super Bowl ad, part of the first class of crypto companies to ever advertise in the big game.
FTX Foundation
Anyone that’s followed FTX knows that we’re very passionate about charity, most of our leadership are big advocates and supporters of Effective Altruism with the goal to donate as much money over their lives as possible. In line with that, FTX launched FTX Foundation in January of 2021. As part of that launch, we announced that 1% of all fees generated on FTX will be donated to charity. Furthermore, FTX will match up to $10,000 worth of user donations every day. Since we started the foundation, we’ve earmarked $16,777,156.42 for donations. We are ecstatic to see how many of our users have participated in this initiative, donating over $8,650,000 to date.
$3,754,895.46 have been donated to charities such as Pachama, My Brothers Keeper Alliance, GiveDirectly the TB12 Foundation and more.
We were very excited to welcome Nick Beckstead to the FTX team back in November. Nick will be leading our charitable initiatives in 2022 and ensuring all the money raised through our exchange is utilized to maximize the impact FTX has on making the world a better place.
FTX Podcast
Through the FTX podcast, we’ve had the pleasure of sitting down to speak with a fascinating collection of industry players and hear their stories, thoughts, and outlook for what’s to come. Spanning 112 episodes to date with over 500,000 views and listens, people have tuned in to listen to notable guests such as our own Sam Bankman-Fried; Mark Cuban; Anatoly Yakovenko, founder of Solana Labs; Yat Siur, founder & CEO of Animoca Brands; Sam Williams, founder of Arweave; and Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital. As we move into the new year, we have an exciting lineup of guests and episodes to release, but are always looking for more people to speak with, so if you have any suggestions on who’d you’d like to see us have on in 2021, reach out and let us know!
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