Some breakups are forever. Four years after watching $275 million evaporate in the FTX implosion, Singapore’s state-owned investment giant Temasek Holdings has made its position on cryptocurrency crystal clear: not interested, not now, possibly not ever.
The firm, which manages a portfolio valued at roughly $521 billion as of mid-2026, has not made a single direct cryptocurrency investment since its FTX stake was written down to zero in November 2022. Instead, Temasek’s forward-looking strategy is laser-focused on artificial intelligence and infrastructure, two themes that notably do not include digital tokens.
The FTX wound that never healed
To understand Temasek’s crypto aversion, you have to understand just how badly the FTX bet went. The firm invested $210 million for a roughly 1% stake in FTX International and another $65 million for about 1.5% of FTX US. That $275 million total was written down to exactly zero when Sam Bankman-Fried’s exchange imploded in spectacular fashion.
Temasek’s defense at the time was telling. The firm clarified that it had “no direct exposure in cryptocurrencies” and characterized the FTX investment as a bet on exchange infrastructure, not on crypto itself. That distinction between “crypto infrastructure” and “crypto” has become the cornerstone of Temasek’s entire digital asset philosophy since then.
