Expect ‘records broken’ by Bitcoin ETF: Brett Harrison (ex-FTX US), X Hall of Flame
The former president of FTX US dishes the dirt on his falling out with former Jane Street colleague Sam Bankman-Fried and predicts the spot Bitcoin ETF will far outshine the record-breaking success of the Bitcoin Futures ETF.
Who is this guy anyway?
The ex-president of FTX US, Brett Harrison, tells Magazine that he didn’t say a single word to Sam Bankman-Fried during the two-month notice period after he resigned, which was only months before the whole exchange blew up. Even getting a message to SBF to say he was resigning in the first place was hard work.
“I had to talk to other people in the company to formally resign. I wrote one text to Sam and I got back a single heart emoji. That was the last I heard from him,” Harrison declares.
Harrison and Bankman-Fried had been colleagues years earlier at quantitative trading firm Jane Street, where Harrison saw his potential while teaching SBF in a course on programming for traders. But things went south real quick between them at FTX.
Harrison claims it was due to Bankman-Fried’s inflated ego and his reluctance to accept any feedback or advice.
“Sam hated criticism and, as a result, refused to communicate with me. It drove my decision to quit even further,” he says.
Yet, Harrison says he had no clue of the storm about to engulf the company with FTX declaring bankruptcy only a few months after he bailed from the U.S. arm of exchange.
“The rest of us, especially in the U.S., were blindsighted. We were working with regulators, top lawyers, and to have the whole organization fail because of one person’s greed, will stay with us for the rest of our life.”
However, he feels justice was done in the recent fraud trial against his former boss.
“I do feel the result was absolutely just, and I’m glad that justice was served quickly; I think it was essential that Sam was held accountable for his actions,” he declares.
Meanwhile, Harrison wasted no time diving into a new project.
He co-founded Architect.xyz, a DeFi platform that focuses on bridging all the different opportunities in the digital asset space for both institutional and retail investors.
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Harrison is a bit of a brainiac and has a computer science degree focused on artificial intelligence (AI) from Harvard University. So, who better to ask about the potential for AI to take over the world?
“I do not think AI is a threat to humanity,” he declares, pointing out that AI has been in development for much longer than people think:
“Lots of people are now seeing AI for the first time, they don’t appreciate the decades of progress that has gone into it.”
Harrison is more concerned about humans using AI to pull off scams and swipe identities more effortlessly.
“It truly is just linear algebra,” he says. “The idea that linear algebra is some existential threat to our survival just feels somewhat fanciful to people who have been practitioners in the field for a long time.”
What led to Twitter Fame?
Harrison is a smart guy who drops interesting stuff on social media that people seem to dig.
But let’s not dance around the fact that the FTX connection is what blew up his follower numbers, with his count hitting its highest weekly peak when FTX took a nosedive in November 2022, when he gained 2,140 followers, according to data from Social Blade.
Back in January, his long rant about his departure from X got nearly 3 million eyeballs. He said he wasn’t canned from the FTX gig; it just wasn’t his dream job, and SBF was an “insecure, prideful manager.”
Content people can expect
If you scroll through Harrison’s timeline over the years, you’ll notice his glam lifestyle has toned down considerably since the FTX days.
Back then, he was often seen hanging out with celebs and former prime ministers.
Nowadays, it’s way more low-key. Besides throwing in some market talk, Harrison’s been sharing snippets about his family life lately.
He’s even flexing about saving toys from the FTX US office that somehow dodged the whole bankruptcy drama.
What type of content does he like?
Harrison loves the blend of genius and goofiness on Crypto X — getting a daily fix of humor and high intellect.
“One of the things I love about Crypto Twitter is the perfect mix of highly intellectual cerebral, either Market structure or political commentary, and degenerate memes.”
However, when we asked about the accounts he’s into, he’s not that forthcoming.
After doing some light digging, it turns out he’s following 2,100 accounts, and guess who’s in the mix? None other than Bankman-Fried’s pal Tiffany Fong.
Bitcoin predictions?
Harrison used to avoid making predictions, saying he’d never have predicted the events that happened to him. But that was when things were going too smoothly, and that’s all changed.
Harrison declares there is a very “high probability” that a spot Bitcoin ETF will get approved in the first quarter of 2024.
As for price predictions? Harrison isn’t tossing out any six-figure numbers right away.
“In Q1 assuming there is an ETF that’s approved. I think something in the $50,000 to $55,000 range feels pretty probable,” he states.
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He doesn’t see Bitcoin hitting six figures until “toward the end of 2024 or early 2025 at the earliest.”
He points to the first day of Bitcoin Futures ETF as just a little hint of how optimistic he is about the spot Bitcoin ETF:
“If you remember the day when a Bitcoin Futures ETF was listed the inflows were some of the highest ever seen in the history of ETFs. I think we’re going to see even more records broken for a spot Bitcoin ETF.”
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Politics
Chancellor Rachel Reeves considering ‘changes’ to ISAs – and says there’s too much focus on ‘risk’ in investing
The chancellor has confirmed she is considering “changes” to ISAs – and said there has been too much focus on “risk” in members of the public investing.
In her second annual Mansion House speech to the financial sector, Rachel Reeves said she recognised “differing views” over the popular tax-free savings accounts, in which savers can currently put up to £20,000 a year.
She was reportedly considering reducing the threshold to as low as £4,000 a year, in a bid to encourage people to put money into stocks and shares instead and boost the economy.
However the chancellor has shelved any immediate planned changes after fierce backlash from building societies and consumer groups.
In her speech to key industry figures on Tuesday evening, Ms Reeves said: “I will continue to consider further changes to ISAs, engaging widely over the coming months and recognising that despite the differing views on the right approach, we are united in wanting better outcomes for both savers and for the UK economy.”
She added: “For too long, we have presented investment in too negative a light, quick to warn people of the risks, without giving proper weight to the benefits.”
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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
Ms Reeves’s speech, the first major one since the welfare bill climbdown two weeks ago, appeared to encourage regulators to focus less on risks and more on the benefits of investing in things like the stock market and government bonds (loans issued by states to raise funds with an interest rate paid in return).
She welcomed action by the financial regulator to review risk warning rules and the campaign to promote retail investment, which the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is launching next year.
“Our tangled system of financial advice and guidance has meant that people cannot get the right support to make decisions for themselves”, Ms Reeves told the event in London.
Read more:
Should you get Lifetime ISA? Two key issues to consider
Building societies protest against proposed ISA reforms
Is there £15bn of wiggle room in Reeves’s fiscal rules?
Last year, Ms Reeves said post-financial crash regulation had “gone too far” and set a course for cutting red tape.
On Tuesday, she said she would announce a package of City changes, including a new competitive framework for a part of the insurance industry and a regulatory regime for asset management.
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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job
In response to Ms Reeves’s address, shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride said: “Rachel Reeves should have used her speech this evening to rule out massive tax rises on businesses and working people. The fact that she didn’t should send a shiver down the spine of taxpayers across the country.”
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The governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, also spoke at the Mansion House event and said Donald Trump’s taxes on US imports would slow the economy and trade imbalances should be addressed.
“Increasing tariffs creates the risk of fragmenting the world economy, and thereby reducing activity”, he said.
Fairshake reported raising $52 billion from the crypto industry in the first half of 2025, at a time when candidates previously supported by the PAC were providing crucial votes.
Programmable regulation could be the solution to legacy regulatory frameworks struggling to keep pace with DeFi’s rapidly evolving ecosystems. Embedding compliance in code can bring legal clarity, reduce risk and foster innovation in DeFi.
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