Armani Ferrante

Ferrante graduated from the University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is a campus of the University of California system; the University of California was founded in 1868 through a merger of two institutions and moved to Berkeley, California, in 1873.Open the full entry with a degree in computer science and then worked as a software engineer at AppleAppleApple is a public technology company founded in 1976 and headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Its business includes the iPhone, Mac, iPad, wearables, and services such as digital content, payments, and cloud storage. The company builds its product system through in-house hardware, operating systems, and services.Open the full entry. He later moved into blockchain software development.⁠[1]

In a 2024 interview, Ferrante recalled that he left Apple in 2017, drawn by EthereumEthereumEthereum is an open, general-purpose smart contract blockchain that launched in 2015, and its native asset is ether (ETH). The project was proposed by Vitalik Buterin and advanced jointly by eight co-founders; the network now uses proof of stake and centers on the EVM, the account model, a rollup scaling roadmap, and the open EIP process.Open the full entry and the idea of open blockchains, and went looking for related development work. Over the following years he worked with various companies and open-source projects, and in 2020 began looking for developer tooling problems he could solve in the Solana ecosystem.⁠[2]

Ferrante was involved early on in development for the Serum ecosystem on Solana; he later founded Coral and developed Anchor, a smart contract development framework for Solana, which became one of the most commonly used development frameworks on Solana.⁠[3][4][2]

In April 2022, Ferrante founded Backpack. Together with co-founder Tristan Yver, he gradually brought the wallet, the xNFT standard, the Mad Lads community, and the exchange together into a single ecosystem, continuing a shift from developer tools toward user-facing products.⁠[5][2]

On September 28, 2022, Coral completed a $20 million strategic funding round co-led by FTX Ventures and Jump Crypto, with participation from Multicoin CapitalMulticoin CapitalMulticoin Capital began operations on October 1, 2017, and invests mainly in crypto companies and protocols across public and private markets. It runs a Master Fund that invests mainly in tokens, as well as venture funds that back early-stage companies.Open the full entry and others, to build the crypto wallet Backpack. Backpack supports executable NFTs (xNFTs), allowing users to run applications such as Magic Eden and Mango Markets directly inside the wallet; it opened a private beta and was open-sourced that day. Ferrante described Backpack as a “gateway to Web3” and argued for reducing phishing and security vulnerabilities by reviewing applications.⁠[3][6]

Ferrante subsequently led the launch of the NFT collection Mad Lads and expanded Backpack into a crypto platform offering an exchange, a non-custodial wallet, and an NFT community. By early 2025, Backpack Exchange served users in more than 150 countries and had reached a cumulative trading volume of $60 billion.⁠[4][7][8]

On February 28, 2024, the Backpack ecosystem companies, where Ferrante serves as CEO, announced the first joint close of a $17 million strategic Series A round at a combined valuation of $120 million, led by Placeholder VC.⁠[9]

In an interview released in May 2024, Ferrante described Mad Lads as a product testing ground: the team attracted users through games, puzzles, and NFT interactions in the wallet, and then connected the wallet with exchange accounts. He regarded the combination of product, narrative, art, and community as an important part of how Backpack develops.⁠[2]

On January 7, 2025, Backpack announced the acquisition of FTX EU, FTX’s European business, saying the transaction had been approved by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission. The company planned to use the entity’s MiFID II regulatory foundation to expand its European perpetual futures business, while handling the return of funds to former FTX EU customers. The announcement’s statements about court approval and creditor distributions were subsequently clarified by FTX.⁠[7]

The day after Backpack published its acquisition announcement, FTX stated that the U.S.United StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry bankruptcy court had not approved Backpack’s acquisition of FTX EU; what the court had previously approved was a sale to former insiders, who in turn agreed to an indirect transfer to Backpack. FTX also stressed that Backpack does not take part in the overall creditor distributions under the U.S. bankruptcy proceedings, and that FTX EU’s return of former customers’ balances is a separate obligation.⁠[10]

In May 2025, Backpack opened withdrawals of euro balances for former FTX EU customers, subject to account and identity verification. The process covers fiat balances of the European entity and is handled separately from the claims process for FTX International crypto assets and other claims.⁠[11]

On September 8, 2025, Backpack EU officially launched, offering perpetual futures trading to European users. The company said the acquisition of FTX EU had received CySEC approval in January of that year and that it had since been building its team, compliance structure, and products; this marked the European expansion plan announced at the start of the year entering actual operation.⁠[12]

In March 2026, Backpack launched the BPBPBP (BP p.l.c.) is a British energy company headquartered in London; it began as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, founded in 1909, merged with Amoco in 1998 and experienced the Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. As of October 2026 its chief executive is Meg O’Neill.Open the full entry token and set up an equity participation program for eligible users. Holding the token is not the same interest as holding company shares; conversion requires meeting the program’s eligibility and conditions such as continued staking, and the reserved equity pool may also be diluted by future share issuance.⁠[13][14]

On June 2, 2026, Backpack announced plans to launch Backpack Securities, combining traditional securities brokerage, tokenized distribution, and a unified asset account. The product suite led by Ferrante thus expanded further from a crypto wallet and exchange to U.S. stocks and ETFs.⁠[15]

In July 2026, Ferrante was interviewed by CNBCCNBCCNBC is an American business and financial news cable channel launched by NBC in 1989; it merged with its rival FNN in 1991 and since January 2026 has been part of Versant Media Group, spun off from Comcast.Open the full entry host Morgan Brennan, presenting around-the-clock U.S. stock trading for international investors. He stressed the difference between securities interests and synthetic or derivative instruments that merely track share prices, and likened stock tokenization to stablecoins widening access to the U.S. dollar. He described Backpack as a financial services platform connecting brokerage, crypto trading, and on-chain assets.⁠[16]

Backpack: Official website: https://backpack.app/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]

Anchor: Official website: https://www.anchor-lang.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

X: Public account: https://x.com/armaniferrante (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

Mad Lads: Official website: https://madlads.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19]