One of FTX’s Biggest Victims Could Be the Bahamas’ Finance Reputation

Years before Sam Bankman-Fried became a household name by building and blowing a billion-dollar cryptocurrency empire, he was on the hunt for a new corporate home in the Caribbean. In April 2019, his company, FTX Trading Ltd., registered in Antigua and Barbuda, a nation of tiny, idyllic islands 1,400 miles southeast of Florida.

But when FTX applied for permits to operate its flagship crypto exchange, the government balked. “Regulators here took the decision that they didn’t quite understand the business model,” Prime Minister Gaston Browne told local news outlets in November, shortly after FTX’s collapse. “Apparently it was a one-man operation — so they never proceeded to license it.”