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2) I've been trying to figure out how to summarize our whirlwind of advancements over the last few months, and how to talk about what lessons we've learned from our raise and growth. But I wanted to start two years ago, at a conference in Taipei.

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3) FTX had only existed for a few months, and we flew out to the ABS conference meet a bunch of players in the industry and debut our exchange. And for the first time, we were turning some heads.

4) It was invigorating. For the first time, others in the industry seemed as interested in us as we were in them. I wrote up a document of reflections on the conference; some notes from then:

Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange

5) We released our volume monitor (ftx.com/volume-monitor) and it got really positive feedback; as much from sources looking for a site that filtered out fake volume, as from much maligned but important exchanges grateful to be recognized, finally, as (mostly) real.

ftx.com

FTX

6) The previous conference had been great for us. People came up, saying that they’d never heard of us but that we seemed awesome. Taipei felt very different. Our booth was less busy, but not because no one noticed; rather people just had fewer questions.

7) I didn't attend many talks, but one quote stayed with me: comparing LEO to the 2008 bailouts, and saying "we take care of our own". I found it kind of inspiring. Throughout the conference, person after person came up to compliment us, and say how excited they were.

8) Which was great! But which also hid another truth: that part of implying they wanted to work for FTX was implying they didn't want to stay where they were. People were constantly bemoaning what happens to a company (just, you know, hypothetically) when it grows too big

9) The only exceptions, really, were companies that had gone through hardship. I wondered if loyalty and drive were forged in the fight to survive.

10) One sentence stat stands out, in retrospect: "Arthur stopped by to banter for a few minutes as a few onlookers ogled; I wonder if anything has changed since then." An onlooker took a photo, which eventually made its way to Twitter.

Quote Tweet

stockmart

@stockmart_

Feb 6, 2021

Replying to @SBF_FTX and @SBF_Alameda

Sam, i’m dead serious when i ask this, did you know you were becoming the next legendary exchange founder when this pic was taken? This was clearly the passing of the torch

Fun.: We Are Young ft. Janelle Monáe [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

11) The document was called "Tonight We Are Young", and it ended with: "Sometimes the changing of the guards doesn’t require any of the old guards to actually leave."

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Fun.'s music video for 'We Are Young’ from the album, Some Nights - available now on Fueled By Ramen. Celebrate the 10th anniversary of fun.’s breakthrough a...

12:57 PM · Jul 30, 2021Twitter Web App

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12) Anyway, that's how we felt then: young, and alive, and hopeful, and... small. We've had two years since then. What's changed?

13) Well, we've come a long way, I guess. I think the ABS conference was the first time I really saw clearly what FTX could become. Between then and now has been executing on that vision. And trying to do it right.

14) We've had missteps. I'll never forget what happened the first time I tried managing a company, and realized I didn't know what to do when people were unhappy. That was a learning experience. And I've certainly said my fair share of things I wish I could take back.

15) But I guess our focus, always, has been to keep improving, in real time: to keep growing, and to understand what our role is and should be, and to keep building towards that. In part, that means products.

16) We've spent a long time iterating on the products we offer, and their execution. Whenever someone says they prefer another site, that means we fucked something up, and we should figure out what. We try, as best we can, to always do a good job.

17) It also, of course, means regulation. The industry is evolving, as are regulators stances, but the truth is there's always been regulation in crypto, and we've always had duties. We've had duties to know our customers, and to prevent money laundering, from day 1.

Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange

18) We tweak this now and then. FTX.com/intl doesn't service Americans (FTX.us does!), and from day 1 we've blocked the US, along with other restricted jurisdictions.

ftx.com

FTX

19) We've recently started working with Inca to expand our monitoring. Using NLP they identified ~0.01% of volume that might be from restricted jurisdictions submitting false info; we've restricted those accounts. We've also added another layer to our KYC process to prevent it.

20) And we've restricted particular products from particular jurisdictions, and reduced the maximum leverage, in response to updates from regulators, users, and the industry. But by and large we've always had regulatory duties, and we built FTX with that in mind from the start.

21) And it means getting licenses where we can. It's not always a quick process, but it's an important one. We're going through it in a number of jurisdictions right now, and I'm optimistic that they'll bear fruit.

22) Some of these are in response to updated regimes; others are licenses necessary to offer new products that our customers have been requesting for a long time. Sometimes you have to cut out products users like, but ideally you can take the initiative to get a license for it.

23) And finally, we've spent a lot of time over the last six months thinking about our longer term vision. Where we are, and where we need to get. How to build the consumer product that should obviously exist; how to continue making our professional product better.