I asked SBF (editor's note: FTX founder and CEO) to comment on the 2020 annual summary, and here is his reply:
Image 1: "Hello everyone, I want to write a 2020 year review about FTX. Please see the image below, and that's it! That's what the review is all about."
Still, the graph above is from three weeks ago, and we're trading 3x as much now, so I thought I'd explain how we've grown over time.
1. Development
During the year, our tradable assets, market, users, transaction volume and team have all achieved tremendous growth:
1.1 Transaction volume
2020 is a year of blowout growth in FTX trading volume, which has increased by more than 1,000% compared with 2019. The total transaction volume exceeds 3.85 trillion US dollars, the average daily transaction volume is 1.06 billion US dollars, and a record of over 7 billion US dollars In this regard, only 1 day in 2019 exceeded $1 billion in trading volume, which was also our all-time high at the time, but this record was higher than our daily average in 2020 to be low.
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our
ourOTC(OTC) trading volume has also experienced a huge increase, increasing by about 10 times since the beginning of the year, with the highest single-day trading volume reaching 350 million US dollars. In addition, new products in over-the-counter trading, such as EFP (Physically Delivered Futures Trading), have also seen a significant increase in trading volume.
1.2 Users
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Picture 3: Daily active users
1.3 Tradable market
At the beginning of 2020, 410 tradable asset pairs were launched on the FTX platform; throughout 2020, our tradable asset pairs increased by nearly 3 times, reaching 1,100. With the increase of assets on the platform, traders can utilize more assets as margin. Over the past year, we have added 71 assets as margin (31 cryptocurrencies, 10 fiat currencies, and 30 tokenized stocks).
In addition to the huge growth in the market and supported crypto assets, we have also done a lot of work to enhance our fiat currency support, such as adding deposits/withdrawals in Australian dollars, SEPA Euro banking, and BRL and TRY through local partners Local transactions, and more related fiat currency businesses will be launched next month!
1.4 Transaction Capacity
During 2020, the total number of orders we supported at the same time, the total number of transactions and the total number of users have more than doubled by more than 10 times. December 2020 was the month with the highest trading volume in FTX history, but there were no glitches such as downtime or transaction delays.
1.5 FTX Valuation
In February 2020, we decided to open up the opportunity for users to invest in FTX at a valuation of US$1 billion. In only about 9 months after the establishment of FTX, we became the fastest growing unicorn company in history. We've been delighted to see the response from a wide variety of institutions, funds, deal firms, and angel investors; we've raised over $15 million in total. While we are not sure what the next round of valuation FTX will be worth, we will not be selling any more equity at a $1 billion valuation.
1.6 FTX team
Due to the rapid growth of user volume, transaction volume and products, we are also actively growing the team. At the beginning of 2020, FTX had only 15 employees, and has since added 37, and we are pleased to welcome 20 new employees to our team through the acquisition of Blockfolio, bringing our total headcount to 72, an increase of Nearly 500%. Through the expansion of members, we will be able to serve customers better and bring you more products you want. We are always looking for energetic talents to join our team, if you think you meet the requirements, please get in touch with us (please send your resume to contact@ftx.com)!
However, we should add that we did not scale to 2,000 employees overnight, nor do we plan to do so. As our business continues to expand, FTX values the quality and unity of our team and will ensure that we never compromise on this principle. With a team of less than 10 developers, we're proud of what we've achieved, so we prefer such a small, lean team to a large one that involves a lot of disorganization and outsourced work. volume team.
2. New features & products
FTX has always been an exchange that can quickly iteratively launch new products and features, and 2020 is no exception. In addition to the many major infrastructure improvements we've made over the last year, we've released many new features, products, and tools for our users. We’ve rounded up some of the new features and products we’re most excited about in 2020 to reflect on our progress in building a one-stop shop for all our users’ needs.
2.1 Tokenized stocks
The product we are most excited about in 2020 is tokenized stocks. This is something unprecedented in the cryptocurrency world: enabling qualified traders to trade tokenized stocks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Tokenized shares are backed 1:1 by shares of regulated brokers, allowing traders to gain all the economic benefits of owning the shares themselves: dividends, stock splits, etc. In addition to spot trading of stocks, we have also added futures trading support for corresponding products and allow users to trade with up to 101x leverage, just like any other market on FTX; same mortgage pool, same Margin requirements, all the same.
2.2 Pre-IPO products
With the launch of tokenized shares, we hope to innovate further and develop an even more exciting product that has never been seen before in either cryptocurrency or traditional finance: a pre-IPO product.
The day before Airbnb's IPO, there were a lot of expectations about what would happen to the price after the IPO. However, this potential demand for price predictions cannot be carried by any trading product. So... we created aordered this product. The Airbnb IPO pre-sale contract (Pre-IPO Airbnb contract) is a derivative contract whose performance is linked to the market value of Airbnb at the end of the first day of trading on the stock exchange. These contracts are then automatically converted into tokenized Airbnb shares, enabling users to lock in the price of tokenized Airbnb shares ahead of the IPO.
Since then, in anticipation of Coinbase's imminent IPO, we have launched CoinbaseIPO pre-sale contract trading market。
2.3 Spot Margin Trading and Borrowing
From the beginning, FTX has supported most types of transactions (futures, options, spot, OTC, fiat currency trading pairs), but there is one product that we have been lacking but users have always demanded, which is spot leveraged trading. Therefore, we now also launch spot leveraged trading. Users canmultiple assetsLeverage trading with a leverage ratio of up to 10 times. In addition, for those users who just want to buy and hold, it is now possible to earn asset income at the same time by lending to other traders. Due to the P2P nature of the financing market, the loan rate is determined by the supply and demand in the market, not by the exchange, thus maximizing efficiency.
In addition to being able to trade with leverage, users can also leverage the lending market to raise capital for opportunities outside of FTX. Users are free to withdraw the borrowed funds for other platform transactions, mining or any use that best matches their needs. For example, it is now possible to use the FTX platform to do BTC-collateralized USD loans, so users can deposit BTC and take out a USD loan to buy a house or a cool Lamborghini, while also maintaining your BTC exposure. In addition, users who hold USD can deposit on the FTX platform to borrow cryptocurrencies for liquidity mining. we are atNovember's monthly reportThis is described in more detail in .
We have approximately $70 million in outstanding loans on our platform since launch.
2. 4 Forecasting products
Before the controversial U.S. election, we launched a prediction market for the general election, enabling users to long/short contracts related to each candidate (if the candidate wins, it will be settled with 1; if the candidate loses, it will be settled with 0) . This product has made FTX get a lot of reports in the media (such as the following reports1、2), and FTX also becomesElectionbettingodds.comOne of the reference sources used to determine win percentage. This product is very popular among our users and traders in the industry. A total of about 200 million contracts were traded during the trading validity period of the token contract. After the election, FTX’s presidential election market continued to function despite the voting, and it was the only market traders could still trade until the final election results were determined.
2.5 FTX website revision design
Initially, FTX was conceived as an exchange aimed at professional traders, and while this gained us a large user base of experienced traders, some users wanted a more user-friendly website and improved user interface (UI). We conducted many user surveys to understand user needs and suggestions for improving the user interface.
After months of feedback and multiple product iterations, we launched a brand new user interface with various new features: hovering over the order book will reveal the average price and cumulative trading volume; a side panel showing all of FTX's tradable markets, with search, filter, and favorite features; tools for managing sub-accounts, and more. In addition, this update work is still going on, and we will launch more updates as planned. If you have any feedback or feature suggestions, please contact andEquity pledge！
2.6 Equity pledge
Serum Dex was launched in August, and one of the features that the Serum ecosystem offers SRM holders is the ability to stake SRM at an annual yield (APY) of 4%. In view of this, FTX launched its first equity pledge product, SRM holders can pledge their SRM to FTX to obtain the benefits.
Shortly thereafter, we launched another staking product, for FTT. Although FTT holders already enjoy a series of rights and interests, we want to further reward those users who are optimistic about FTT for a long time. In addition to the existing fee discounts enjoyed by FTT holders, users who pledge FTT will also receive commission rebates for pending orders, higher referral rebate fees, more voting rights for FTX’s newly listed assets, and SRM, etc. Token airdrop increment and many other rewards.
We’ve also been delighted by the community’s feedback on this, with many staunch supporters staking their FTT in an effort to earn these rewards. In 2021, we will work harder to expand the rights and interests of pledged FTT, such as increasing levels, reducing P2P lending fees, etc.
2.7 Quantization Space (Quant Zone)
In order to make trading more suitable for all users and allow users with no programming experience to build algorithmic trading strategies, we launched the Quant Zone. Users can edit a trigger condition (once the condition is met, its execution strategy will be triggered) and one or more execution strategies through the "quantitative space" to determine how to place an order after the trigger condition is triggered.
For example, say you have a position on BTC-1225 and want to move it to BTC-0326, you can easily create a quant strategy that sells your position on BTC-1225 and simultaneously buys it on BTC- Position on 0326. Furthermore, you can do all the heavy lifting for you with one extremely simple quantitative space strategy: execute this rebalancing trade in smaller batches, thereby minimizing slippage. Click here to viewSome examples of trading strategies that users can build using Quant Space：
● Time Weighted Average Price Trading (TWAP)
●Basis trade
●Futures position adjustment trading
2.8 External API program
To incentivize more trading software to integrate into our platform, we launched the External API Program on June 2nd, allowing those with trading bots to add referral codes to their API calls to earn Fee rebate. Since then, more than 40 trading bot platforms and providers have joined the program, and tens of millions of trades have been submitted through platforms such as Stacked, 3Commas and CoinRoutes.
In addition to the above, we have rolled out many other features and products over the past year (e.g. calculated order entry forms, custom logins, voting on new live assets/features, etc.) Too many to detail here. To keep abreast of FTX's latest developments and product release information, please pay close attention to ourmonthly report, in the monthly report we will study the market in depth and introduce the latest developments of FTX in detail.
3. FTT
One thing that makes us particularly happy is the trend of FTT. The price of FTT has increased by 270% in 2020, and its price was higher than the opening price of $2.14 on January 1, 2020 for 361 days in the last year. In other words, if you bought FTT on January 1st, you would be profitable 98.9% of the year. In less than two months into 2020, on February 16, FTT broke through its all-time high price record of $2.68 set in August 2019, closing at $2.976 that day.
In 2020, FTX repurchased and burned 6,549,196 FTTs, equivalent to $42,026,190.73, bringing the total number burned to 8,548,850 FTTs (with a total value of $54,729,737). In terms of the number of destroyed FTTs, the largest single destruction in FTX history occurred on November 25, when 247,707 FTTs were destroyed, worth $1,078,885; in terms of the dollar value of destroyed FTTs, the largest single destruction in FTX history The burn occurred a week later, destroying $1,100,607.96 worth of FTT. (Please note: Since this is the number calculated at the time of the original writing, the FTT and USD value we burned on December 31 once again surpassed the previous record, repurchasing and burning 248,902 FTT at $1,435,66 ; and the price of FTT has hit another all-time high, currently at $6.70.)
With the launch of Serum DEX and FTX's equity pledge products, FTT holders can earn the benefits of holding FTT through SRM airdrops. FTT holders will receive 3 SRM per week for every 500 FTT they hold. Combined with the equity pledge products mentioned above, FTT pledgers can get 3.372 SRM for every 500FTT they hold.
Finally, we just addedFTT perpetual contract market, bringing more volume and liquidity to those looking to gain exposure to FTT prices.
4. FTX.us:
In May 2020, our US-regulated FTX.us went live, marking our expansion into the US market. Since then, we've come a long way in building the best trading platform for US traders. Since launch, we have registered for a US MSB financial license and have been applying on a state-by-state basis to obtain the necessary MTL licenses to operate in a fully compliant manner across US states.
We are currently operating in 49 of the 50 states in the United States. In order to ensure our expansion into the US market, we hired Sina Nader, who was the head of Robinhood's cryptocurrency department, to serve as FTX.us COO to expand our business in the United States. Despite its relatively young history, FTX.us has established some of the deepest and most liquid order books in the US market, often with pending orders with buy one/sell one depths exceeding $100,000. Our user base and trading volume have grown significantly as U.S. market participants gradually discover our unparalleled advantages within the U.S., combining high liquidity with low fees.
Additionally, we are excited to work with the talented team at Blockfolio to bring an exciting new product for retail customers to the US market. This will provide an easy and enjoyable experience for those who may not be familiar with cryptocurrencies, or who prefer a simplified interface over a full-featured exchange, while still benefiting from FTX.us' high liquidity. More than 350,000 users have joinedWaiting list for this product。
5. Cooperation & Acquisition
5.1 Blockfolio
In August, we announced the largest acquisition in cryptocurrency history: we acquired Blockfolio for $150 million: Blockfolio is one of the most famous and widely used products in the cryptocurrency industry, reaching over 600 Tens of thousands of downloads and hundreds of millions of page views. Working together with the amazing team at Blockfolio, we have very exciting plans to leverage FTX's leading liquidity and trading capabilities, as well as Blockfolio's outstanding user interface and user experience (UI/UX) design and marketing, to Blockfolio's Existing users publish retail trading products and hope to attract a large number of users who are new to the cryptocurrency industry.
5.2 FMX
FMX is an FTX white label product built by Coin98 in cooperation with Vietnam's largest cryptocurrency entity. Officially launched in December 2020, FMX is a retail-friendly product more familiar to local Vietnamese. The exchange aims to develop the retail derivatives market in Vietnam, which has so far been dominated by contracts for difference (CFD) type cryptocurrency derivatives products. We are delighted to be working with the FMX team to help solve one of the fastest growing cryptocurrency markets.
5.3 HXRO
Interest in gamified trading has exploded over the past few years, with apps like Robinhood simplifying the trading experience and making it easier for new market participants to join. HXRO is one of the leading platforms driving the gamification of transactions in the cryptocurrency space. They have simplified a lot of complex and abstract options trading and created a product with an excellent user interface and user experience (UI/UX), which we believe will have great appeal to retail investors. therefore,We are very happy to have reached a cooperation with them, providing backend support for their Tix/Wix products, and we're looking forward to working closely with their team in 2021.
6. FTX Trading Contest & Events
In 2020, FTX held more than 20 contests and rewards events with 7 different partners, rewarding more than 10,000 participants, more than $2.2 million in prize money, more than $1 million in giveaways, additional rewards, fee rebates and processing fees Discounts over $200,000. stay tunedFTX Twitter, don't miss out on more contests and giveaways in 2021.
7. Charitable Donations
At FTX, we take philanthropy very seriously. Many members of our leadership are ardent supporters of Effective Altruism, the aspiration to give back as much money as possible to society. To date, FTX and its employees have donated over $20 million to some of the most effective charities in the world, and we couldn't be happier with what we've accomplished in the past year.
Ahead of the Christmas and New Years holidays, our CEO Sam joined Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Dragonfly Capital managing partner Haseeb Qureshi to share their thoughts on giving in cryptocurrencies and effective altruism. views and describe their efforts in this field. Sam, Vitalik and Haseeb each donated $50,000 to a charity of the community's choice.
One of our employees sent Christmas greetings with friends in Colombia, distributing gifts to more than 300 children in the Medellin area. In addition to toys, the children also received clothes, food, masks and other supplies related to epidemic prevention. You can organize in ourphoto albumSee the children's reactions after receiving the gifts.
Through our representatives in Nigeria, FTX has collaborated with some of the elders in the poorest districts of Lagos to donate 400 food baskets to families in need and they were kind enough to share with us some of their achievementsphoto。
8. FTX Blog & Podcast
blog
8.1 blog
The FTX blog provides a platform for us to share the latest developments in FTX, gain insight into the latest trends in the market, and feature the thoughts of guests from some of the best investment institutions in the cryptocurrency industry: our friends at CMSSharing from an insider's point of viewhow they deal with risk; Split CapitalThe development of BitMEXDeep dive; Blockhead Capital examines how institutional players are changing the market structure of cryptocurrenciesdetailed analysis。
8.2 Podcast
With the FTX podcast, we had the pleasure of sitting down with a fascinating group of industry leaders and hearing their stories, thoughts, and visions for the future. To date, our podcast has produced 37 episodes and has been viewed and listened to more than 60,000 times.
Viewers and listeners actively locked us and paid attention to these heavyweight guests, such as Paolo Ardoino, technical director of Bitfinex & Tether; Dan Matsuzeski, co-founder and partner of CMS; Andre Cronje, founder of Yearn Finance; Jeremy Allair, founder and CEO of Circle ; Roger Ver, Old Man of Bitcoin (OG) and founder of Bitcoin.com; and Kyle Samani, co-founder of Multicoin Capital.
As we head into the new year, we'll be announcing an exciting lineup of guests and episodes, but we're always looking for more conversationalists, so if you have suggestions for our conversationalists in 2021, or would like to see Who we invite to the conversation, please feel free totell us！
9. Outlook for 2021
2020 has been an exciting year for FTX, and we are very pleased with what we have achieved, but in our opinion, it is just the beginning and we have high hopes for 2021. We have set ambitious goals to enter the United States with FTX.us; continue to release innovative, industry-leading products at a breakneck pace; and continue to increase our market share until we become the largest exchange in the space. In the new year, we will make tireless efforts in the following aspects.
9.1 FTX.us
With the launch of FTX.us, we have completed the basic work of compliant operations in 49 states in the United States. Based on the global popularity of FTX International Station (ftx.com), we will strive to build FTX.us Become the leading digital asset exchange in the United States. At the same time, we have many expectations for FTX.us and look forward to launching more products for US users.
9.2 APP for retail investors
Already on average millions of people check their Blockfolio APP more than 10 times a day to stay informed about the market. Since Blockfolio's mission is to be the easiest way for people to participate in the financial future of crypto, it was only natural to add transaction information to the mobile experience people already know and love. Please look forward to this major update in early 2021, and we can expect to see more retail-focused FTX trading platform products being added to the Blockfolio APP within the year. join inwaiting listCome and receive more updates in time
9.3 OTC trading and institutional trading products
While our OTC desk has grown significantly in volume since its launch in 2019, the technology powering it has not been upgraded much. But this situation will change in the first quarter of 2021, we will successively launch real-time prices, partial buying, time-weighted average price (TWAP) functions and a completely improved user interface. As more institutional buyers enter the cryptocurrency space, we also expect to see continued growth in sales of products tailored to their business.
9.4 Prediction Market
Following the success of our presidential election market prediction product, we intend to expand the prediction category to more events, such as sports, e-sports, midterm elections, etc. The platform is now availableSuperbowl Prediction Market, and more exciting markets will appear in the near future, therefore, the expansion of prediction markets has already begun.
9.5 Options
One of the most common requests we received this year was to expand the options product to include option chains or CLOBs. We have already started discussions on how to expand and improve our options offerings, which we look forward to supporting continued growth in derivatives trading volumes in 2021. In addition to the improvements on the exchange, we also plan to complete the integration with Paradigm in the first quarter, so that users of Paradigm and FTX can benefit from the excellent work Anand and his team have done on the product.
9.6 More assets are online
As the digital asset industry continues to grow, the need to trade more and more assets continues to increase. After entering 2021, we will seek to actively expand our supporting assets and trading market to meet everyone's demand for popular currencies. Only 3 days have passed in 2021, and FTX has launched 5 new trading markets.
9.7 FTT Rights and Ecosystem
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Read the original text:https://blog.ftx.com/blog/end-of-year/
