Ex-FTX COO Bootstraps AI-Crypto Platform After Funds Shut Doors Over Bankruptcy Stigma

Former FTX Chief Operating Officer Constance Wang launched a new crypto trading platform this year without a single dollar of outside capital. Not by choice. Institutional investors told her compliance departments blocked them from backing any venture tied to former FTX executives while bankruptcy proceedings drag on, Wang said during a Chain Reaction X Spaces session published Monday.

The platform, Pacifica, debuted in early 2025 as a Solana-based perpetual futures decentralized exchange. Wang plans to layer artificial intelligence tools on top to create what she calls intelligent trading infrastructure for investors. “For Pacifica, we didn’t raise any funds, it’s completely bootstrapped,” she said.

The funding freeze highlights a quiet aftermath of the November 2022 collapse that left an $8.9 billion hole in customer accounts. Alameda Research, FTX’s sister trading firm, had siphoned customer deposits to cover its own losses — a transfer orchestrated by founder Sam Bankman-Fried without consent.

Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year sentence after a 2024 conviction on seven felony counts. His lawyers petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court in September to overturn the verdict. He has also requested a pardon from President Donald Trump. Caroline Ellison, Alameda’s former CEO, testified against Bankman-Fried under a plea deal and was released in January after serving 440 days of a two-year sentence.

Wang’s own encounter with the Netflix dramatization of the saga lasted 30 seconds. The trailer for “The Altruists,” an eight-episode series premiering globally Nov. 19, 2026, prompted a physical reaction, she said. The portrayal of Ellison clashed with her firsthand experience. Bankman-Fried, she added, was far more socially awkward than the screen version suggests.

Source: Cointelegraph