CZ refused to cooperate with SBF before purchasing 20% ​​of FTX shares. SBF then bought back CZ's FTX shares at a price more than 27 times the price.

PANews reported on October 4 that Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, revealed in his new book Going Infinite that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) proposed cooperation to Binance founder Zhao Changpeng (CZ) in early 2019, hoping to introduce the cryptocurrency futures trading platform technology developed by his team to Binance at a price of US$40 million. In this proposal, Alameda Research is responsible for providing technical support, while Binance is responsible for bringing customer and market trust.

After detailed deliberation, Binance decided to reject SBF's proposal and chose to develop a futures trading platform in-house. To this end, SBF turned to in-house development, intending to build a futures trading platform that would cater not only to the cryptocurrency community, but also to large professional trading firms such as Jane Street. FTX initially issued 350 million FTT tokens, some of which were offered to employees at 5 cents and some to key cryptocurrency figures, including Changpeng Zhao, at 10 cents. Although Changpeng Zhao and most FTX employees chose to reject the offer, strong demand from outside investors prompted SBF to increase the token price from 20 cents to 70 cents. On July 29, 2019, FTT was listed on FTX, opening at $1 and then rising to $1.5. A few weeks later, Changpeng Zhao contacted SBF and proposed to purchase 20% of FTX for $80 million.

Later, in the face of increasing regulatory scrutiny, especially the regulator's strict requirements for FTX's investor list and their personal details, SBF believed that maintaining Zhao Changpeng as FTX's second largest shareholder was no longer in the company's long-term interests. A former Binance employee revealed: "When asked about Zhao Changpeng's private information such as his family and place of residence, Zhao Changpeng was reluctant to provide it." In order to avoid this regulatory pressure, SBF took the initiative to propose to Zhao Changpeng in mid-2021 to repurchase the FTX shares it purchased for US$80 million at the end of 2019. Zhao Changpeng offered a price of US$2.2 billion. Despite the high price, SBF agreed to pay. But when the two parties were about to sign a formal agreement, Zhao Changpeng suddenly asked for an additional US$75 million. SBF agreed to this additional fee and eventually completed the equity repurchase.