Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong: Why would investors put money into FTX now?

Brian Armstrong, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global ( NASDAQ: COIN ), said Thursday that he has no clue "why investors would put money" into Sam Bankman-Fried's imploding crypto exchange, FTX. The non-U.S. portion of FTX came under an overwhelming amount of withdrawal requests over the weekend, but it failed to fill those requests and thus it faced a liquidity crunch. Shortly thereafter the liquidity-strapped exchange came close to selling itself to rival Binance, but the latter quickly stepped away from its non-binding agreement, citing fund mishandling and regulatory issues. Now FTX is reportedly scrambling to raise $9.4B from potential investors, but the desired rescue package isn't close to coming to fruition. "It's surprising to me that Sam is still pursuing that line of trying to raise money for this venture," Armstrong told CNBC in an interview. The Coinbase ( COIN ) chief noted that SBF approached him "in the mode of trying to raise financing, emergency financing." Coinbase said earlier this week that it has minimal exposure to FTX and zero exposure to FTX token ( FTT-USD ), the crypto issued by FTX. "But you know, it quickly became apparent to me that this [FTX] wasn't the type of asset that we would want to invest in if it was actually that far underwater," he added. "And, you know, if there had actually been either fraud or just, you know, misrepresentation to either customers or investors, you know, in my at that point, my view was that the firm didn't have value to, for us to participate in anything, even if we could." Earlier, Coinbase pursued second round of job cuts .