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.”
A Wall Street sign is viewed in front of the New York Stock Exchange.
Eduardo Munoz | AFP | Getty Images
This is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox.
Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:
1. Secret Santa
The three major indexes are coming off back-to-back winning weeks, with the S&P 500 on Friday rising closer to records it set earlier this year. Stocks’ advances came as investors geared up for the last Federal Reserve policy meeting of the year, which is set to kick off tomorrow.
Here’s what to know:
The delayed release of September’s personal consumption expenditures price index showed core PCE — a key inflation measure — was lighter than economists anticipated on a 12-month basis.
The report gave stocks a boost on Friday, as traders bet the data would encourage Fed officials to cut interest rates this week.
The Fed is set to announce its decision on Wednesday. Traders are pricing in about a 90% likelihood that the central bank cuts interest rates again, according to CME’s FedWatch tool.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that he expects the U.S. economy to finish the year with 3% real GDP growth, even after the hit from the federal government shutdown.
Following its four-day win streak last week, the S&P 500 is now roughly 0.7% away from its intraday record and about a quarter-percent off its closing high.
Todd Combs, portfolio manager at Berkshire Hathaway Inc., waits for the start of the “Berkshire Hathaway Invest In Yourself 5K” race presented by Brooks Sports, a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. company, on the sidelines of the Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S., on Sunday, May 4, 2014.
Berkshire CEO Warren Buffett, who will step down as CEO at the end of the year, said in a press release that Combs “made many great hires” for Geico and “broadened its horizons.”
Nancy Pierce, operations chief at Geico, will replace Combs as the business’ CEO. Berkshire also announced that its CFO Marc Hamburg will retire in June 2027 and be replaced by Charles Chang, current CFO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
3. L.A. confidential
Dado Ruvic | Reuters
Both Wall Street and Hollywood were left reeling after the announcement of the Netflix–Warner Bros. deal on Friday. Now, the question is if the agreement can get over regulatory hurdles.
President Donald Trump’s administration views the deal with “heavy skepticism,” a senior administration official told CNBC’s Eamon Javers on Friday. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has already asked for an antitrust review, calling the deal an “anti-monopoly nightmare.”
Believing it has a better chance of securing regulatory approval, Paramount Skydance is weighing whether to bring a bid straight to WBD shareholders in a last-ditch effort to beat Netflix, sources told CNBC’s Alex Sherman. Meanwhile, movie theater operators are wondering whether they can survive if the Netflix deal makes the world’s largest streaming service the owner of a major film studio.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said Google can’t enter into an agreement like it has with Apple, which it pays for search browser usage, unless the deal has termination date of a year or less. Mehta also listed requirements for the makeup of a committee that will decide who Google has to share its data with.
But as CNBC’s Jennifer Elias notes, these weren’t the most drastic punishments on the table. Mehta in September ruled against harsher penalties proposed by the Department of Justice, which could have included the forced sale of Google’s Chrome browser.
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5. Unfading endurance
How often should jeans really be washed?
Catherine Mcqueen | Moment | Getty Images
The global denim market is now a more than $100 billion industry, driven by major retailers such as Levi Strauss and American Eagle. But as CNBC’s Gabrielle Fonrouge reports, its origins are far more humble.
Blue jeans were born out of a woman’s frustration with the frequent rips in her gold miner husband’s denim pants. Her tailor’s solution — adding copper rivets to the garment’s key points of strain — signified the birth of what we know today as the blue jean. In the approximately century and a half since, the pant has become a staple of American fashion that transcends income class and trend cycles.
The Daily Dividend
Here’s what we’re keeping an eye on this week:
Monday: New York Fed’s Survey of Consumer Expectations
Tuesday: Job Openings & Labor Turnover data for October
Wednesday: Fed decision and press conference; Oracle and Adobe earnings (after the bell)
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Ryan Ermey, Alex Sherman, Lillian Rizzo, Dan Mangan, Sarah Whitten, John Melloy, Jennifer Elias and Gabrielle Fonrouge contributed to this report. Josephine Rozzelle edited this edition.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna speaks at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, on March 11, 2025.
Andy Wenstrand | Sxsw Conference & Festivals | Getty Images
IBM announced Monday that it is acquiring data streaming platform Confluent in a deal worth $11 billion.
Shares of Confluent soared 29%. IBM stock climbed about 1%.
IBM will pay $31 per share in cash for all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Confluent, according to a release. The transaction is expected to close by the middle of 2026. Shares of Confluent closed at $23.14 on Friday.
Tune in at 10:10 a.m. ET as IBM CEO Arvind Krishna joins CNBC TV to discuss the deal. Watch in real time on CNBC+ or the CNBC Pro stream.
“With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said in a release.
IBM said the deal will bolster its artificial intelligence offerings as it expects global data growth to more than double by 2028.
Read more CNBC tech news
Wedbush called it a “strong move” from IBM that adds more data processing capabilities to its hybrid cloud ecosystem and is a natural fit to help eliminate data silos for powering AI.
“We loudly applaud this deal as Arvind takes IBM further into the AI Revolution with more acquisitions likely ahead,” the analysts said in a note.
Wedbush maintained its overweight rating on IBM and $325 price target. IBM closed at $307.94 on Friday.
The addition of Confluent fits with IBM’s deal last year to land cloud software maker HashiCorp for $6.4 billion and the 2023 move to acquire Apptio in a deal worth $4.6 billion. Both of those acquisitions were all-cash deals.
Confluent has more than 6,500 clients across major industries and works with Anthropic, Amazon‘s AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft, Snowflake and others.
Ben Powell, chief strategist for Middle East and Asia Pacific at BlackRock Investment Institute, during a Bloomberg Television interview at the Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW) conference in Abu Dhabi, AD, United Arab Emirates, on Monday, Dec. 9, 2024.
Bloomberg | Getty Images
The wave of capital pouring into artificial intelligence infrastructure is far from peaking, said Ben Powell, chief investment strategist for APAC at BlackRock, arguing the sector’s “picks and shovels” suppliers — from chipmakers to energy producers and copper-wire manufacturers — remain the clearest winners as hyperscalers race to outspend one another.
The surge in AI-related capital expenditure shows no sign of slowing as tech giants push aggressively to secure an edge in what they see as a winner-takes-all contest, Powell told CNBC Monday on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Finance Week.
“The capex deluge continues. The money is very, very clear,” he said, adding that BlackRock is focused on what he called a “traditional picks and shovels capex super boom, which still feels like it’s got more to go.”
AI infrastructure has been one of the biggest drivers of global investment this year, fueling a broader market rally, even as some investors question how long the boom can last.
Nvidia, whose GPU chips are the backbone of the AI revolution, became the first company to briefly surpass $5 trillion in market capitalization amid a dizzying AI-fueled market rally that sparked talk of an AI bubble.
The build-out has set off long-term procurement efforts across the tech sector, from chip supply agreements to power commitments. Grid operators from the U.S. to the Middle East are racing to meet soaring electricity demand from new data centers. Companies, including Amazon and Meta, have budgeted tens of billions of dollars annually for AI-related investments.
S&P Global estimates data-center power demand could nearly double by 2030, mostly driven by hyperscale, enterprise and leased facilities, along with crypto-mining sites.
‘Dipping toes into credit market’
Powell also noted that leading tech firms have only begun to tap capital markets to fund the next phase of AI expansion, suggesting additional capital is on the way.
“The big companies have only just started dipping their toes into the credit markets… feels like there’s a lot more they can do there,” he said.
The “hyperscalers” are behaving as if coming second would effectively leave them out of the market, Powell said. That mindset, he added, has pushed firms to accelerate spending even at the risk of overshooting.
Much of that capital, Powell noted, is likely to flow to the companies powering the AI build-out rather than model developers, reinforcing a growing view among global investors that the most durable gains from the AI boom may lie in the hardware, energy and infrastructure ecosystems behind the technology.
“If we’re the recipients of that cash flow, I guess that’s a pretty good place to be, whether you’re making chips, whether you’re making energy all the way down to the copper wiring,” Powell noted, expecting “positive surprises driving those stocks in the year ahead.”
