CZ previously rejected SBF's proposal for a $40 million futures trading platform partnership, but later offered to pay $80 million for a 20% stake in FTX.

BlockBeats news on October 4th: Michael Lewis, the author of "The Big Short," revealed in his new book "Going Infinite" that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) proposed a collaboration with Binance founder CZ in early 2019, hoping to introduce the cryptocurrency futures trading platform technology developed by his team to Binance for a price of $40 million. In this proposal, Alameda Research was responsible for providing technical support, while Binance was responsible for bringing in customers and market trust. After careful consideration, CZ decided to reject SBF's proposal and chose to independently develop a futures trading platform. As a result, SBF turned to independent development, intending to build a futures trading platform that could not only meet the needs of the cryptocurrency community but also cater to large professional trading companies such as Jane Street. FTX initially issued 350 million FTT tokens, some of which were offered to employees at a price of 5 cents, and some were offered to important cryptocurrency figures, including CZ, at a price of 10 cents. Despite CZ and most FTX employees choosing to decline, strong demand from external investors prompted SBF to raise the token price from 20 cents to 70 cents. On July 29, 2019, FTT was listed on FTX with an opening price of $1, which later rose to $1.5. Several weeks later, CZ contacted SBF and proposed to purchase 20% of FTX for $80 million.