FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Spots Opportunity in Troubled Markets

Personal investment in Robinhood comes as his crypto exchange could look to acquire struggling competitors

article-image

Sam Bankman-Fried; Blockworks Exclusive Art by Axel Rangel

share

key takeaways

  • Bankman-Fried takes a 7.6% stake in investment tool Robinhood through Emergent Fidelity Technologies, of which he is the sole director and majority owner
  • The purchased shares were worth roughly $605 million Friday afternoon

The head of crypto exchange FTX has bought a 7.6% stake in investing platform Robinhood. 

Though Sam Bankman-Fried’s company was not involved in the deal, he has said FTX could participate in the next wave of upcoming mergers and acquisitions he predicts will take place.

Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder and CEO, purchased roughly 56 million Robinhood shares, according to a recent regulatory filing, at a cost of roughly $648 million. 

The shares were valued at around $605 million at 3:45 p.m. ET on Friday, up about 25% from the day before, but still less than the price he paid. 

The buy was done through Emergent Fidelity Technologies, a company incorporated in Antigua and Barbuda, according to the document. Bankman-Fried is the majority owner of Emergent.

Bankman-Fried declined to comment today on the Robinhood deal, which did not involve FTX, but in a recent interview with Blockworks he said the difficult market conditions in the digital asset space could trigger a wave of M&A activity. 

“There’s going to be a ton of M&A,” he said, adding that “it wouldn’t be totally shocking” for FTX to acquire some of the business of exchanges that are shrinking.

FTX’s US affiliate last year bought digital currency futures and options exchange LedgerX to bring crypto derivatives to its US user base. More recently, FTX revealed in February it was set to acquire fintech firm Liquid Group in a bid to navigate Japan’s crypto exchange laws.

A Robinhood spokesperson also declined to comment, instead pointing to a Twitter thread the company posted Thursday. 

“We’re doubling down on creating a multi-generational company where customers can build wealth for their generations,” the tweet said. “Of course we think it is an attractive investment too. We have the best customer base, are introducing great new products, and we have the team to deliver.”

Robinhood reported a net loss of $392 million in the first quarter. 

The company’s net revenues were $299 million in the first three months of 2022, down from $522 million in the first quarter of 2021. Transaction-based revenues were $218 million, about half of what they were in the year-ago period. Crypto transactions accounted for $54 million of those revenues, down from $88 million in 2021’s first quarter.

Dan Keeler contributed to this story.

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates (11).png

Research

We believe that Exponent is best positioned to dominate the Solana yield market – the fastest-growing sector in the ecosystem – with topline liquidity increasing at an annualized rate of nearly 600%. The founding team (ex-Squads, Kamino, Solana Foundation) cares deeply about product, security, design, and user experience and understands the foundation for building a great protocol. The team’s deep ties in Solana DeFi also present a significant strategic advantage, as evidenced by Exponent PTs being onboarded as collateral on Kamino, Drift, and Loopscale before its main competitor, RateX. In this regard, we view PT integrations in money markets as the most compelling avenue for Exponent to expand its market share and own its vertical.

article-image

Franklin Templeton’s Innovation Head Sandy Kaul says institutions will issue stablecoins and tokenized cash offerings to stay competitive

article-image

Surviving financial doomsday takes some preparation

article-image

Pump.fun’s launch partners include Kraken, Kucoin, Bitget, Bybit, Gate and MEXC

article-image

Monad Foundation’s Keone Hon said the team’s been “thinking about how to grow the onchain economy for some time”

article-image

Cuts to government R&D budgets may prove penny wise, bitcoin foolish

article-image

Still relatively little is known about the memecoin platform’s forthcoming token