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FTX’s multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency blowup hasn’t destroyed all faith in the industry. 

In a new documentary premiering Monday, FTX customers, insiders and investors tell CNBC that despite not receiving a single dollar worth of cryptocurrency back, they’re optimistic on the industry and plan to keep investing. 

Evan Luthra, an app developer, entrepreneur and angel investor, told CNBC he lost $2 million dollars in the collapse of FTX. Luthra said he knew when FTX filed for bankruptcy in late 2022 that he wouldn’t have “access to any of this money for the next few years.” He continues to speak at crypto conferences

FTX Customer, Evan Luthra, spoke to CNBC in Miami before speaking at a crypto conference.

CNBC

“I do want everybody to understand that the mistake here was not bitcoin, the mistake was not crypto,” Luthra said. “The fundamental reason why we buy bitcoin, why we use bitcoin has not changed.” 

Luthra said his hefty loss on FTX hasn’t shaken his bitcoin bullishness.

“I know it’s going to end up at over $100,000 sooner or later anyways, so for me it’s a great buy,” he said. Bitcoin is currently trading at about $26,900, down from a high of about $69,000 in December 2021.

“All the success is made in the trenches, not when everybody’s already celebrating,” he said. 

FTX, once one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, spiraled into bankruptcy after its swift collapse last year. Shortly after, FTX investigators said they discovered $8.9 billion dollars in customer assets were missing from the exchange.

FTX founder and ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried faces seven criminal charges for fraud and violating campaign finance violations. He’s pleaded not guilty to all charges. Jury selection begins in Manhattan on Tuesday.

FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried leaves from Manhattan Federal Court after court appearance in New York, United States on June 15, 2023.

Fatih Aktas | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

At a bankruptcy hearing in April 2022, an attorney for FTX said $7.3 billion dollars in cash and liquid crypto assets had been recovered from the exchange. So far, none of the customers interviewed by CNBC have received any of their money back. 

Jake Thacker, an FTX customer in Portland, Oregon, told CNBC he lost hundreds of thousands of dollars shortly after losing his job in the tech industry.

“I’m in quite a big hole right now,” Thacker said. “I’m probably going to have to file for bankruptcy.”

FTX customer, Jake Thacker spoke with CNBC after losing hundreds of thousands of dollars on the exchange.

CNBC

Thacker told CNBC he “would encourage people to still invest in crypto.” 

“I probably would give them some different advice at this point,” he said. That advice would come with the warning, “Here’s what I learned, don’t make the same mistakes I did.” 

Bhagamshi Kannegundla said he first heard about FTX in an advertisement featuring comedian Larry David that aired during the Super Bowl. 

“I was like, oh my goodness, there’s all these big name people utilizing FTX,” Kannegundla said. “So I was like, OK, hey, I think I’ll be safe using this.”

Less than a year later, Kannegundla was out $174,000, representing around 60% of his crypto portfolio, from FTX’s collapsed.

Bhagamshi Kannegundla, an FTX customer, told CNBC he sold his bankruptcy claim to reinvest in crypto.

CNBC

“Based on all the other bankruptcies and everything that happened in the crypto market, I was really, really worried about getting anything back, and then how long I would have to wait,” Kannegundla said.

Instead of waiting for the recoveries to eventually be distributed to FTX customers,  Kannegundla went online and found a company that would help him sell his bankruptcy claim for pennies on the dollar to get a little bit of cash more quickly.

Kannegundla said his bankruptcy claim was for $174,000. He received around $19,000 in the sale. 

“The buyer was, after all the due diligence and everything, it went down to like 11% of the $174,000,” he said.

Years later, if the FTX bankruptcy process recovers more than the 11 cents on the dollar for his claim, the buyer pockets the difference. Kannegundla said he will have “zero regrets” if that money gets recovered because he has a different strategy.

“I wanted to get the cash from the bankruptcy claim, primarily to invest in crypto again,” he said. “I felt as if there was a good chance for me to make money in the next five to 10 years.” 

Kannegundla understands that it may be an odd choice.

“People might think I’m crazy for this,” he said. “After going through the FTX and all these other bankruptcies, why would you want to buy any more crypto?” 

He rationalized his decision. 

“When you believe in something as far as technology, you will go through it, you know, it’s kind of like the same person who bought like, let’s say Amazon stock,” he said. 

Another FTX customer, Sunil Kavuri, who has a background in traditional finance, said he moved his digital assets from rival exchange Binance to FTX because he believed it was a safe place for his money. He pointed to the fact that the company raised money from top venture capital firms Sequoia and Paradigm.  

“I thought OK, this is a very safe, institutionally backed exchange,” he said.

Bahamas-based crypto exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. on Nov. 11, 2022, seeking court protection as it looks for a way to return money to users.

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

In an email to CNBC, Kavuri said he hasn’t purchased any crypto since the collapse of FTX because he “wanted to take a break from suffering a massive loss.” Over the last 10 months, he said the majority of his time has been spent fighting “for the rights of all FTX users that lost money due to the FTX bankruptcy.” 

“It hasn’t shaken my faith in the underlying asset itself,” Kavuri said. “I think cryptocurrencies generally, it should be here to stay.”

FTX Customer, Sunil Kavuri spoke with CNBC about his multi-million dollar loss after the exchange filed for bankruptcy.

CNBC

Across the industry, crypto still has its believers despite the madness of 2022.

Brett Harrison, the former President of FTX’s U.S. business, said he was blindsided by his parent company’s collapse. But he’s doubling down on cryptocurrencies.

Harrison, who left FTX less than two months before its demise, told CNBC he “had no reason to suspect that FTX wasn’t anything other than extremely profitable and in great shape” prior to his departure.

Brett Harrison, the Former President of FTX US left the company less than two months before it’s collapse.

CNBC

Speaking about his plan to move forward, Harrison said he’s been raising money to start a new company in the space called Architect Financial Technologies. 

“I’d really like to build a technology and a tech-forward brokerage that allows people to trade seamlessly and easily in digital assets and any kind of other tokenized products in addition to other asset classes,” Harrison said. 

Anthony Scaramucci, founder of Skybridge Capital, said he felt like he was late to the game. He didn’t make his first bitcoin investment until October 2020. He later started Skybridge to focus on digital assets. 

Anthony Scaramucci, the founder of Skybridge Capital, spoke with CNBC at his office in New York.

CNBC

Scaramucci told CNBC he “was building a close relationship with Bankman-Fried” and felt “betrayed and disappointed” when FTX collapsed after making a $10 million dollar investment in the exchange’s FTT token.

He said he still sees “a very strong bull case for Web 3,” referring to broad technologies surrounding crypto and the prospective future of a distributed internet.

“You got to be patient” he said. “If you’re going to go through a period of fraud, and fraudsters and over leverage, you have to see it to the other side.”

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SoftBank’s Son ‘was crying’ about the firm’s need to sell its Nvidia stake

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December 2, 2025

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SoftBank’s Son ‘was crying’ about the firm's need to sell its Nvidia stake

Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., speaks at the SoftBank World event in Tokyo, Japan, on Wednesday, July 16, 2025. Speaking via teleconference, Son and OpenAI chief Sam Altman argued that advancing artificial intelligence would lead to new jobs that are not yet imagined, and the advancement of robotics will help kickstart a “self-improvement” loop. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son on Monday downplayed the decision to offload the conglomerate’s entire Nvidia stake, saying he “was crying” over parting with the shares.

Speaking at a forum in Tokyo Monday, Son addressed SoftBank’s November disclosure that the firm had sold its holding in the American chip darling for $5.83 billion. 

According to Son, SoftBank wouldn’t have made the move if it didn’t need to bankroll its next artificial intelligence investments, including a big bet on OpenAI and data center projects. 

“I don’t want to sell a single share. I just had more need for money to invest in OpenAI and other projects, Son said during the FII Priority Asia forum. “I was crying to sell Nvidia shares.”

Son’s comments are consistent with what analysts and other Softbank executives said in November, describing the sale as part of broader efforts to bolster SoftBank Vision Fund’s AI war chest.

SoftBank has doubled down on its AI plans this year with a series of projects, including work on Stargate Project data centers and the acquisition of U.S. chip designer Ampere Computing.

The Japanese giant could also “potentially” increase its investment in OpenAI depending on the performance of the ChatGPT maker and the valuation of further rounds, a person familiar with the matter previously told CNBC.

Earlier this year, Son said that SoftBank was “all in” on OpenAI and predicted the AI startup would one day become the most valuable company in the world. 

So far, that bet has reaped some dividends, with SoftBank reporting last month that its second-quarter net profit more than doubled to 2.5 trillion yen ($16.6 billion), driven by valuation gains in its OpenAI holdings.

However, SoftBank’s massive AI bets come amid growing fears and jitters in markets about a potential AI bubble. 

In his Monday talk, Son also pushed back against these concerns, arguing that those who talk about an AI bubble are “not smart enough.”

He predicted that “super [artificial] intelligence” and AI robots will generate at least 10% of global gross domestic product over the long term, which he said would outweigh trillions of dollars of investment into the technology.

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A ‘seismic’ Nvidia shift, AI chip shortages and how it’s threatening to hike gadget prices

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December 2, 2025

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A 'seismic' Nvidia shift, AI chip shortages and how it's threatening to hike gadget prices

The logo of an Apple Store is seen reflected on the glass exterior of a Samsung flagship store in Shanghai, China Monday, Oct. 20, 2025.

Wang Gang | Feature China | Future Publishing | Getty Images

The cost of your smartphone might rise, analysts are warning, as the AI boom clogs up supply chains and a recent change by Nvidia to its products could make it worse.

AI data centers, on which tech giants globally are spending hundreds of billions of dollars, require chips from suppliers, like Nvidia, which relies on many different components and companies to create its coveted graphics processing units.

But other companies like AMD, the hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft, and other component suppliers all rely on this supply chain.

Many parts of the supply chain can’t keep up with demand, and it’s slowing down components that are critical for some of the world’s most popular consumer electronics. Those components are seeing huge spikes in prices, threatening price rises for the end product and could even lead to shortages of some devices.

“We see the rapid increase in demand for AI in data centers driving bottlenecks in many areas,” Peter Hanbury, partner in the technology practice at Bain & Company, told CNBC.

Where is the supply chain clogged?

One of the starkest assessments came from Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu, CEO of Chinese tech giant Alibaba.

Wu, whose company is building its own AI infrastructure and designs its own chips, said last week that there are shortages across semiconductor manufacturers, memory chips and storage devices like hard drives.

“There is a situation of undersupply,” Wu said, adding that the “supply side is going to be a relatively large bottleneck.” He added this could last two to three years.

Bain and Co.’s Hanbury said there are shortages of hard disk drives, or HDDs, which store data. HDDs are used in the data center. These are preferred by hyperscalers,: big companies like Microsoft and Google. But, with HDDs at capacity, these firms have shifted to using solid-state drives, or SSDs, another type of storage device.

However, these SSDs are key components for consumer electronics.

The other big focus is on a type of chip under the umbrella of memory called dynamic random-access memory or DRAM. Nvidia’s chips use high-bandwidth memory which is a type of chip that stacks multiple DRAM semiconductors.

The winners and losers from the surge in memory chip prices

Memory prices have surged as a result of the huge demand and lack of supply. Counterpoint Research said it expects memory prices to rise 30% in the fourth quarter of this year and another 20% in early 2026. Even small imbalances in supply and demand can have major knock on effects on memory pricing. And because of the demand for HBM and GPUs, chipmakers are prioritizing these over other types of semiconductors.

“DRAM is certainly a bottleneck as AI investments continue to feed the imbalance between demand and supply with HBM for AI being prioritized by chipmakers,” MS Hwang, research director at Counterpoint Research, told CNBC.

“Imbalances of 1-2% can trigger sharp price increases and we’re seeing that figure hitting 3% levels at the moment – this is very significant.”

Why are there issues?

Building up capacity in various areas of the semiconductor supply chain can be capital-intensive. And it’s an industry that’s known to be risk-averse and did not add the capacity necessary to meet the projections provided by key industry players, Bain & Co.’s Hanbur said.

“The direct cause of the shortage is the rapid increase in demand for data center chips,” Hanbury said.

“Basically, the suppliers worried the market was too optimistic and they did not want to overbuild very expensive capacity so they did not build to the estimates provided by their customers.  Now, the suppliers need to add capacity quickly but as we know, it takes 2-3 years to add semiconductor manufacturing fabs.”

Nvidia at the center

A lot of attention is on Nvidia given it dominates when it comes to the chips that are being put into AI data centers.

It is a huge customer of high bandwidth memory, for example. And its products are manufactured by TSMC which also has other major customers like Apple.

But analysts are focused on a change Nvidia has made to its products that has the potential to add major pressure to consumer electronics supply chains. The U.S. giant is increasingly shifting toward using a type of memory in its products called Low-Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR). This is seen as more power efficient than the previous Double Data Rate, or DDR memory.

The problem is, Nvidia is increasingly using the latest generation of LPDDR memory, which is also used by high-end consumer electronics makers such as Samsung and Apple.

Typically, the industry would just be dealing with demand for this product from a handful of big electronics players. But now Nvidia, which has huge scale, is entering the mix.

“We also see a bigger risk on the horizon is with advanced memory as Nvidia’s recent pivot to LPDDR means they’re a customer on the scale of a major smartphone maker — a seismic shift for the supply chain which can’t easily absorb this scale of demand,” Hwang from Counterpoint Research said.

How AI boom is impacting consumer electronics

Here’s the link between all of this.

From chip manufacturers like TSMC, Intel and Samsung, there is only so much capacity. If there is huge demand for certain types of chips, then these companies will prioritize those, especially from their larger customers. That can lead to shortages of other types of semiconductors elsewhere.

Memory chips, in particular DRAM which has seen prices shoot up, is of particular concern because it’s used in so many devices from smartphones to laptops. And this could lead to price rises in the world’s favorite electronics.

DRAM and storage represent around 10% to 25% of the bill of materials for a typical PC or smartphone, according to Hanbury of Bain & Co. A price increase of 20% to 30% in these components would increase the total bill of materials costs by 5% to 10%.

“In terms of timing, the impact will likely start shortly as component costs are already increasing and likely accelerate into next year,” Hanbury said.

Memory chip prices, earnings growth to support South Korea market: Morgan Stanley

On top of this, there is now demand from players involved in AI data centers like Nvidia, for components that would have typically been used for consumer devices such as LPDDR which adds more demand to a supply constrained market.

If electronics firms can’t get their hands on the components needed for their devices because they’re in short supply or going toward AI data centers, then there could be shortages of the world’s most popular gadgets.

“Beyond the rise in cost there’s a second issue and that’s the inability to secure enough components, which constrains the production of electronic devices,” Counterpoint Research’s Hwang said.

What are tech firms saying?

A number of electronics companies have warned about the impact they are seeing from all of this.

Xiaomi, the third-biggest smartphone vendor globally, said it expects that consumers will see “a sizeable rise in product retail prices,” according to a Reuters reported this month.

Jeff Clark, chief operating officer at Dell, this month said the price rises of components is “unprecedented.”

“We have not seen costs move at the rate that we’ve seen,” Clark said on an earnings call, adding that the pressure is seen across various types of memory chips and storage hard drives.

The unintended consequences

The AI infrastructure players are using similar chips to those being used in consumer electronics. These are often some of the more advanced semiconductors on the market.

But there are legacy chips which are manufactured by the same companies that the AI market is relying on. As these manufacturers shift attention to serving their AI customers, there could be unintended consequences for other industries.

“For example, many other markets depend on the same underlying semiconductor manufacturing capabilities as the data center market” including automobiles, industrials and aerospace and defense, which “will likely see some impact from these price increases as well,” Hanbury said.

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Samsung launches its first multi-folding phone as competition from Chinese brands intensifies

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9 hours ago

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December 2, 2025

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Samsung launches its first multi-folding phone as competition from Chinese brands intensifies

Samsung Electronics’s Galaxy Z TriFold media day at Samsung Gangnam in Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 2, 2025.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

Samsung Electronics on Monday announced the launch of its first multi-folding smartphone as it races to keep pace with innovations from fast-moving rivals. 

The long-anticipated “Galaxy Z TriFold” will go on sale in South Korea on Dec. 12, with launches to follow in other markets including China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United Arab Emirates, the company said in a press release. 

The phone will be available in the U.S. during the first quarter of 2026, with more details to be shared later, the South Korean tech giant added. The Galaxy Z Trifold will ship as a single model in black with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage, priced at 3,594,000 South Korean won ($2,449).

With Apple’s expected entry into the foldable segment, Samsung is positioning this device as a multi-fold pilot to reinforce its technology leadership.”

Liz Lee

Associate Director at Counterpoint Research

The device uses two inward-folding hinges to open into a 10-inch display — a tad smaller than the 11th-generation iPad’s 11-inch display — with a 2160 x 1584 resolution.

When its screen panels are folded, the device is measures 12.9 millimeters (0.5 inches) thick — slightly more than the Galaxy Z Fold6 at 12.1 mm and the latest Galaxy Z Fold7 at 8.9 mm.

“Samsung’s first tri-fold model will ship in very limited volume, but scale is not the objective,” Liz Lee, associate director at Counterpoint Research, said in a statement shared with CNBC.

“With competitive dynamics set to shift materially in 2026, especially with Apple’s expected entry into the foldable segment, Samsung is positioning this device as a multi-fold pilot to reinforce its technology leadership.”

A Samsung Electronics Co. Galaxy Z TriFold smartphone on display during a media preview in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Lee added that Samsung’s latest product is meant to test durability, hinge design and software performance while gathering real-world user insights before wider commercialization.

The phone’s three foldable panels can also run three apps vertically side by side, and offer a desktop-like mode without a separate display. 

The TriFold features Samsung’s largest battery capacity among its foldable models and supports super-fast charging that reaches 50% in 30 minutes.

TM Roh, who was recently appointed Samsung Electronics co-CEO and head of the Device eXperience division, said the Galaxy Z TriFold reflects years of work on foldable designs and aims to balance portability, performance and productivity in one device.

Samsung was an early innovator of folding smartphones, unveiling its first foldable device in 2019. While the market has remained relatively small, new competitors have continued to enter, including Chinese brands that have proven competitive in both price and dimension.

Visitors try out the Galaxy Z Trifold during Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Z TriFold media day at Samsung Gangnam in Seoul, South Korea, on Dec. 2, 2025.

Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images

In September, telecommunications giant Huawei announced its second-generation trifold phone for the Chinese market, measuring 12.8 mm thick when folded.

This year has also seen Chinese brands like Honor launch foldable smartphones in international markets. Honor was spun off from Huawei in 2020 in a bid to avoid U.S. sanctions and tap international markets.

Like Samsung’s other recent foldables, the TriFold is rated IP48, meaning it is water-resistant up to 1.5 meters for up to 30 minutes but offers limited dust protection.

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