FTX Collapse Pushes Coral Startup Into Survival Mode

The crypto startup Coral shifted to autonomous mode and did not lose its focus on development after the collapse of FTX deprived it of the $20 million raised in the funding round. The team’s story was revealed in The Block.

In September 2022, the company raised $20 million, predominantly from Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange. Six weeks later, the founders were forced to switch to crisis mode, cutting costs and rethinking the strategy after their funds became stuck on the platform.

“It was a full-blown panic. It felt like we were punched in the gut. […] We were simply trying to stay as positive as possible, keep the team motivated, and not go crazy. Many of us also lost personal capital,” said Armani Ferrante, a former research engineer at Alamada Research and founder of Coral.

The company abandoned several steps on its roadmap in order to stay afloat.

“We set our priorities, for example, how do we make money? How do we advance to the next round? How do we stay alive? It was a traumatic experience in every sense. It seems those moments were an eternity ago. But we are here, and we are still moving forward,” Ferrante recalled.

The team managed to launch the xNFT protocol on Solana, as well as its Backpack wallet on Solana and Ethereum, and make it available for download in beta.

xNFT operates on an ‘app store’ model, allowing users to trade NFTs and interact with dapps through Backpack. In other words, users do not need to use a browser wallet and sign transactions. The founder of Coral likens the technology to the iPhone in the smartphone world.

As Bloomberg reported, the potential relaunch of the collapsed Bitcoin exchange FTX attracted interest from venture firm Tribe Capital, according to Bloomberg.

Earlier Bernstein analysts said that the collapse of Bankman-Fried’s exchange had a positive impact on the crypto market.