A report called attention to suspicious financials of Alameda Research, the private trading firm owned by FTX’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried. This report indicated that a notable portion of Alameda’s assets were denominated in FTT, the trading token for the FTX exchange. Alameda was borrowing capital against FTT for speculative trading. FTX creates and controls FTT, so FTX could play the role of a “central bank” and try to prop up the strength of FTT. This indicated that FTX and Alameda likely didn't have any assets that were actually liquid. As rumors of FTX's insolvency spread, this led to a bank run on the exchange.