The token associated with the defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange has experienced a price surge of over 80% in the past 24 hours. The rally comes after U.S. Securities Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler hinted that he would be open to a rebooted FTX — as long as its done "within the law."

FTT is now changing hands for $2.27, gaining over 80% in the past 24 hours, as of 6.55 a.m. ET, according to CoinGecko.

The token's price surge comes as spot trading volumes increase across all major centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.

Possibility of an FTX reboot

The news comes after it was reported that Gensler said FTX could be revived under new leadership. According to CNBC on Wednesday the SEC Chair gave his views on reports that Tom Farley, a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, is among a short list of bidders attempting to buy the bankrupt FTX exchange. 

"If Tom or anybody else wanted to be in this field, I would say, 'Do it within the law,'" Gensler said at DC Fintech Week. "Build the trust of investors in what you’re doing and ensure that you’re doing the proper disclosures, and also that you’re not commingling all these functions, trading against your customers. Or using their crypto assets for your own purposes," Gensler added.

In September, The Block reported that Bullish, the digital asset exchange of which Farley is the CEO, is among the bidders interested in acquiring the defunct trading platform FTX.

Fintech startup Figure Technologies and cryptocurrency venture capital firm Proof Group are also bidding to buy FTX, according to a November 8 report by the Wall Street Journal. 

Doubts cast

However, 117 Partners Founder Thomas Braziel cast doubt on whether a rejuvenated FTX would ever succeed. "It’s a head fake, FTT is a zero, no buyer of the assets or relaunch partner is going to use or include FTT," he told The Block.

This is not the first time an FTX reboot has been discussed. In January, John J. Ray III, who oversaw Enron’s bankruptcy, floated the idea of restarting the defunct exchange and said that "if there is a path forward on that, then we will not only explore that, we’ll do it."

Ray was appointed CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in the aftermath of its November 2022 collapse. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal Ray said that he established a task force to investigate the possibility of relaunching FTX.com, the primary international exchange operated by the company.