Last November, we reported that one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, FTX, filed for bankruptcy. It was found that the company headed by Sam Bankman Frida embezzled several billion dollars of customer funds with the aim of supporting the rest of the FTX group companies. But when FTX realized it lacked the funds to pay customers, the exchange had to file for bankruptcy. A few months later, the investigation in this case continues, and the manager of the bankrupt stock exchange has finally revealed more precise information about the extent of the fraud.
The current CEO of FTX, John Ray, has informed that the amount of unreimbursed funds to customers reaches a total of 11.2 billion US dollars. Of this total amount, the company has currently managed to identify assets in the amount of 2.2 billion dollars, but only 694 million dollars of it can be repaid immediately. As a result, there is a $9 billion shortfall in customer funds. This money was loaned to other FTX group companies to support them. There have also been versions that the management of FTX bought luxury items, expensive cars, properties, etc. with these funds.
FTX was engaged in various machinations for many years, and some of the ugliness still continues to be revealed. So quite deservedly, Ray called FTX a “complete failure of corporate control”. He also points out that the available information about clients’ assets is often mixed, with incomplete or non-existent records. Therefore, the true amount of losses is not 100% known at the moment.
As for FTX customers themselves, these past few months have been full of uncertainty and worry. Some in this exchange kept assets worth several tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. Although there is finally a little more clarity on how serious this damage is, the company cannot yet say how many customers and what amounts it might recover.
