Crypto.com boss Kris Marzalek has reacted strongly to concerns about his company in the wake of rival exchange FTX’s collpase.
Chief executive Marszalek hit out at ‘naysayers’ and insisted Crypto.com has a healthy balance sheet and is not a risk-taker.
It followed social media question sover the transfer of $400m of ether tokens to another exchange.
Marszalek took the opportunity of a Q&A YouTube chat to address speculation about the money movement on October 21.
He said: “At no point were the funds at risk of being sent somewhere they could not be retrieved. It had nothing to do with any of the craziness from FTX.”
Marszalek promised an audited proof of reserves report to be published within weeks at Crypto.com did not engage in any “irresponsible lending products”.
FTX went under last week with an estimated $1bn client funds allegedly missing.
Mr Marszalek observed: “This has set the industry back a good couple of years in the reputation that we have built.Trust was damaged, if not lost, and we need to focus on rebuilding trust.”
He said that Crypto.com, among the top 10 market exchanges by turnover globally, had about $10m exposure to the FTX collapse.
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Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, told Sky News: “Although the immediate storm following the collapse of the huge exchange FTX, has subsided, the destruction left in its wake has been considerable and crypto speculators hit hard by these recent losses, will be licking some painful wounds.
“This is a painful reminder that the crypto wild west is still a fragile niche in the larger financial system, where money is being bet on highly speculative assets.
“In this opaque world, fraud is rife and although the clamour for greater regulation will mount, this whole debacle also comes with a sense of relief that the deep scepticism among regulators about crypto’s stability has ringfenced larger more established financial institutions from contagion.”