• FTX was one of the largest players in cryptocurrency, particularly in derivatives trading, before collapsing in November 2020.
• The new boss of FTX, John J. Ray III, recently announced plans to reboot the exchange, raising questions about whether this is possible given the technical issues that plagued it from its inception.
• Interviews with former customers and those in major trading firms pointed to woeful latency issues and API bugs at FTX which could make a revival difficult.
FTX: What Happened?
FTX was once one of the largest players in cryptocurrency, especially when it comes to derivatives trading. But then in November 2020, the exchange spectacularly collapsed due to financial woes that became clear at that time.
Rebooting FTX
Recently, John J. Ray III – who is now the new boss of FTX – announced plans to reboot the exchange. This has sparked questions both from former customers and those in major trading firms as to whether this is possible given some of the technical issues that plagued FTX since its inception.
Technical Issues That Plagued FTX
Interviews with people in these major trading firms revealed a number of problems with how FTX was run technically speaking – such as woefully high latency, bugs within their API for traders to interface with them, and coding mistakes that were made along the way. All of these things combined could make a successful revival highly unlikely.
What Does This Mean For Rebooting?
These technical issues have cast doubt on Ray’s plans for reviving FTX as they suggest there may not be much worth bringing back – something which could explain why no public progress has been made since his announcement two months ago.
Conclusion
It remains unclear what will happen next for FTX but its previous technical struggles may prove too big an obstacle for any kind of successful revival or reboot going forward.