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The primary time Gabriel Trompiz heard concerning the FTX student ambassador program was through a LinkedIn message.
He had been identified as someone who could represent and promote the crypto exchange at his college. Trompiz promptly applied through the link he was sent and have become an FTX campus ambassador shortly afterward.
No contracts were signed, and Trompiz says he wasn’t paid. But he was given a task: promoting the corporate to fellow students to assist construct its userbase in Europe.
FTX was already running a campus ambassador program in Africa, with the identical goal of promoting the exchange to fellow students. Calls for college kids to become involved and change into campus ambassadors were shared on FTX Africa’s Twitter account.
Fortunate Atueyi, who attends the University of Nigeria, was one in all them and incessantly hosted events and workshops about FTX.
“They’re expecting to see about 500 to 1,000 or 1,500 students in attendance. So that you teach them about cryptocurrencies, blockchain technology and most significantly the advantages of using FTX,” he told CNBC’s Make It.
Unlike Trompiz, Atueyi says he was paid — so long as he fulfilled certain tasks and met targets that’s. The role was not limited to providing education concerning the exchange. As an alternative, he said referring people and getting them to enroll, and ensuring they began trading and depositing money was a vital a part of it.
Documents seen by CNBC confirm Trompiz’ and Atueyi’s involvement with FTX as student ambassadors. Neither FTX nor the law firms representing the embattled crypto exchange, Sullivan & Cromwell and Landis, Rath & Cobb, responded to a CNBC request for comment on this text.
The collapse
In Europe and the U.S., FTX was mostly known for trading cryptocurrencies. But in Africa, the platform was also used to exchange local currency for U.S. dollars and store funds for people and businesses — effectively using FTX as a de-facto bank.
As an envoy, you preach using it
Imran Yahya
Former FTX student ambassador
FTX filed for bankruptcy and halted the withdrawal of funds by customers in November 2022. Many had tried to tug their investments after rival exchange Binance sold all of its holdings of FTX’s native token FTT and concerns concerning the firm’s liquidity spread rapidly.
A bankruptcy court case is ongoing within the U.S., but it surely continues to be unclear what amount of assets might be recovered and when customers may regain access to any of their investments.
Elsewhere in Nigeria, Imran Yahya was an FTX campus ambassador at Bayero University. “As an envoy, you preach using it,” he told CNBC’S Make It.
In addition to promoting the exchange on campus, he advertised it to his broader local people and created content for FTX.
“There may be nothing fishy from my very own side,” he said. He gave people details about FTX with none obligation to spend money, and so they trusted him and his advice, he explained. A lot of these people lost money in FTX’s collapse.
Similarly to investors and other FTX employees, the scholar ambassadors were blindsided by FTX’s bankruptcy. Atueyi first noticed rumors about how bad the corporate’s financial situation really was on Twitter, but more senior employees reassured him that FTX was “larger than this” and that the rumors were spread by competitors.
“I just saw it as normal business strategies,” he said.
Trompiz and Yahya were similarly greatly surprised, and all three of them lost some money. Partly, it is because as students, they only had limited disposable income to take a position, but Trompiz also already stored most of his crypto investments in a wallet relatively than with FTX.
Picking up the pieces and searching forward
Despite the losses, the three student ambassadors should not ready to provide up on crypto and digital assets. While they’ve learned some lessons from the experience, their outlook has not significantly shifted.
“The one thing that the collapse of FTX taught me that there isn’t any company that is just too big to fail,” Yahya said, adding that the one thing he would do otherwise in the longer term is being more careful.
I type of trusted them. I used to be like, I used to be a part of the people saying FTX was too big to fail
Fortunate Atueyi
Former FTX Student Ambassador
Atueyi has an analogous view: “I’ll just need to play it extra protected,” he said.
For him, that is about trust and understanding that as much as exchanges might say they’re decentralized, they still control your money.
“I type of trusted them. I used to be like, I used to be a part of the people saying FTX was too big to fail,” he said. “I do not think it’s, like, sensible to depart your money there, and so they have full control over your money. So just like all bank,” Atueyi explained.
Trompiz shares his view on decentralization. “The more I get into crypto and the more I learned about it, I see that the actual point of it’s decentralization,” he said.
He believes exchanges like FTX are helpful for the broader industry and for increasing adoption of digital assets — but using them is “like contradicting yourself.” Going forward, he subsequently plans to depend on them less and refocus his investments on other digital asset areas like DeFi.
So while the collapse of FTX lost them money, caused feelings of guilt and impacted personal relationships, they’re coming to terms with it. As Atueyi says: “I personally just love cryptocurrencies … Things like this are going to occur.”
