FTX is facing bankruptcy if it cannot raise billions of dollars of funds to get itself out of a liquidity crisis that erupted at its affiliated Alameda Research company this week.

An initial plan for it to be rescued by rival exchange Binance, which is a sponsor of the Alpine team, collapsed after just 24 hours amid concerns about the scale of the financial hole FTX faced.

A statement from Binance said: “In the beginning, our hope was to be able to support FTX’s customers to provide liquidity, but the issues are beyond our control or ability to help.”

The Reuters news agency has reported that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating FTX’s handling of customer funds and its crypto-lending activities.

The troubles for FTX, one of the most high-profile crypto exchanges in the world, have triggered a meltdown in the crypto markets and pushed Bitcoin to its lowest price for two years.

The FTX exchange’s FTT token crashed from a price of more than $25 earlier this week to a low of less than $2 amid the height of panic selling after the news of the problems. It has since made a small recovery.

FTX’s founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is still hoping that a rescue package can be put in place to save the exchange, but there are doubts about whether or not he will be successful. This has fuelled speculation that its partnership with Mercedes could come to an early end.