Trending: Bitcoin slides to a two-year low after a cryptocurrency exchange deal fails.

FTX: Following the withdrawal of the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world from an agreement to save a smaller rival, the price of Bitcoin has reached a two-year low. After Binance withdrew its agreement to purchase FTX, the price of other digital currency also fell, citing checks and balances issues. Customers of FTX are no longer able to sell or buy different digital tokens on the exchange because of this. If FTX fails, there are worries about increased volatility in the cryptocurrency market.

The moment the news came in, Bitcoin dropped below $16,000 (£14,049) on Thursday for the first time since 2020. Another well-known digital currency, Ethereum, to fell before reclaiming ground. Reportedly, withdrawals reaching $6 billion (£5.2 billion) in just three days were triggered by worries over FTX’s financial stability.

Reports of “mismanaged client cash and purported US agency investigations,” according to Binance, had an influence on its decision not to acquire Binance. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was reportedly looking into how FTX handled customer monies and its crypto-lending activities. The markets regulator is also looking into whether the platform’s usage of customer funds violated any securities rules.

The problems FTX was having, according to Binance, were “beyond our control or ability to help,” the company claimed in a statement shared on Twitter “Retail customers will suffer every time a key company in an industry falter. The crypto ecosystem has grown more resilient over the past few years, and we think that eventually, the free market will pick out outliers that abuse user funds.”

Sam Bankman-Fried, the creator of FTX, and Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEO of Binance, are two of the most influential and well-known competitors in the cryptocurrency industry.

An announcement on its website read: “Withdrawals are not currently being processed by FTX. Depositing is strictly discouraged.”