Transcript Ep. 423: Jesse Powell and Kevin Zhou on How FTX and Alameda Lost $10 Billion

Laura Shin:

Just a quick note that we're releasing what would typically be a Tuesday show on a Monday due to the Thanksgiving holiday coming up. But don't fret, we have a great conversation for you to tune into on Tuesday as well, a special edition of the Chopping Block to go over the first day declaration in the FTX bankruptcy, the US versus Bahamas jurisdictional battle, Genesis and crypto lending, and all the other craziness that happened last week.

As for this episode, I reached out to Jesse Powell, co-founder of Kraken, who ran a centralized exchange for a long time, and Kevin Zhou of Galois Capital, who could offer his perspective as a trader on FTX. The two of them mentioned some past observations about FTX that in hindsight seems suspicious, plus discussed how Alameda, which had been seen as top traders, could have lost so much money. As you might expect, Sam coins such as FTT played a big role. I also asked Jesse for his views on not your keys, not your coins, since he is an exchange owner, and we dive into how FTX’s collapse reflects on the media, VCs and regulators. This was an incredible discussion and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Hi, everyone. Welcome to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto. I'm your host, Laura Shin, author of The Cryptopians. I started covering crypto seven years ago, and as a senior editor at Forbes was the first mainstream media reporter to cover cryptocurrency full time. This is the November 21, 2022 episode of Unchained.

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Today we have a conversation between an exchange owner and an institutional trader who are going to be discussing the collapse of FTX. Here to discuss are Jesse Powell, co-founder of Kraken, which, disclosure, is a former sponsor of the show, and Kevin Zhou, co-founder of Galois Capital. Welcome, Kevin and Jesse.

Jesse Powell:

Hey. Thanks for having us.

Kevin Zhou:

Yeah. Thanks for having us.