Was there anything innovative about the FTX platform itself?

The main feature that enticed large hedge fund traders to trade on there over the likes of Binance was because they offered unlimited size on altcoins; most altcoins on binance futures are limited to about $2 million notional, so if you want to build a large position, you'd have to apply for a subaccount for each position and manage them separately.

But no, they didn't offer any unique products their competitors don't have.

He said it was tailored for institutional investors. It had derivatives and let traders use a single wallet or something.

on spot and futures, the UI is smooth on both web and mobile. they owned a separate wallet mobile app that is also smooth as well.

same great user experience can be seen on their developer api and otc user interface (otc.ftx.com).

the otc interface is somewhat comparable with b2c2 (another otc desk)