Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX CEO, Donated $5M For Biden Campaign

Sam Bankman-Fried stands as the CEO of FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange based in Hong Kong. It seems that Bankman-Fried had also taken to supporting US politics, and donated $5.2 million to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

Significant CEO Support For Both Sides

The wall Street Journal made a report on the 28th of October, showing that Biden had received a total of $79.5 million in donations for his campaigns from the top 100 donors that describe themselves as CEOs. As reported, Bankman-Fried was the second-largest of these “CEO contributors” to the campaign, being beaten out by Micheal Bloomberg, the co-founder of the financial and media giant. Bloomberg had donated a reported $56 million to the Biden campaign.

It should be noted, however, that the major contributions done by CEOS to both presidential candidates, be it Biden or Trump, only stands as a droplet in a bucket. Both of these campaigns managed to raise a combined funding of 2.2 billion USD.

FTX Making New POlitical Moves

FTX has been dabbling within the political arena for a while now, but Bankman-Fried is still considered a “relative newcomer” when it comes to the political spending arena.

Back in February of 2020, FTX had set up a futures contract, one designed to allow a trader to bet over whether or not Trump will be re-elected in 2020. The tokens, aptly dubbed trump tokens, expires to $1 should trump win the US presidential general election. Should Trump lose, these tokens default to $0.

As the latest recorded data shows, the majority of traders are now convinced that Trump will lose, with “Trump Lose” being bet the most. FTX had subsequently launched a new futures contract, as well, with the same concept behind it, just for Biden.

A Stressful Time For The Modern World

As it stands now, no winner has yet to be found for the US elections. At the time of writing, Joe Biden is in the lead, boasting 264 electoral votes to Trump’s 214. Whether this number stays or increases remains to be seen, however.

The current US election stands as a very stressful one, indeed, as many businesses had already opted to board their shops up in preparation for protests. Regardless of who wins, be it Trump or Biden, a protest from the other political group is close to inevitable.

With any luck, the US will take a step forward from this, and hopefully cease the polarizing nature of its political system, but that’s a lot to expect from any entity already established in its ways.