According to ChainCatcher, 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 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, CZ decided to reject SBF's proposal and opted 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 crypto 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 crypto people, including CZ, at 10 cents. Although CZ and most FTX employees chose to reject the offer, strong demand from outside investors prompted SBF to raise 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, CZ approached SBF and proposed to purchase 20% of FTX for $80 million.