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FTX account holders to get money back following exchange collapse

November 2022 failure shook the cryptocurrency industry and led to the conviction of founder Sam Bankman-Fried

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted on fraud charges. Photograph: New York Times

Wed May 8 2024 - 15:03

Nearly all account holders of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX are in line to receive cash worth more than 100 per cent of their official claims, according to a plan of reorganisation filed in court.

FTX said it had gathered roughly $15 billion (€14 billion), mostly from selling venture capital investments made by the exchange and its trading affiliate Alameda Research. The sum is enough to pay 118 cents on the dollar to the 98 per cent of creditors who hold $50,000 or less in claims.

The remaining creditors will receive at least 100 cents on the dollar.

FTX collapsed in November, 2022, leaving a hole in customer accounts worth billions of dollars. The failure shook the cryptocurrency industry and led to the conviction of founder Sam Bankman-Fried on fraud charges. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

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John Ray III, who took the helm of FTX after it filed for bankruptcy, on Tuesday said: “We are pleased to be in a position to propose a Chapter 11 plan that contemplates the return of 100 per cent of bankruptcy claim amounts plus interest for non-governmental creditors.”

Ray publicly described the FTX enterprise he took over as a “dumpster fire” and “crime scene” amid allegations that Bankman-Fried had plundered customer accounts for lavish personal spending and trading, a scheme that collapsed as digital asset prices lost steam during the 2022 “crypto winter”.

FTX noted the recent sharp rally in crypto prices have not driven the expected big recoveries for account holders. Rather, it said about 99 per cent of the bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies believed to have been on the exchange at the time of the bankruptcy filing were missing, leaving the recovery pool largely filled by the proceeds from the company’s investment portfolio.

Among FTX’s most attractive assets was a stake in AI start-up Anthropic, whose shares it sold for nearly $900 million this year. FTX said assets converted into cash will total between $14.5 billion and $15.8 billion.

The plan of reorganisation had landed the support of all FTX’s major creditor constituencies and included a $200 million cash settlement of a $24 billion claim made against the group by the Internal Revenue Service, the US tax collection agency.

After the bankruptcy court approves the newly proposed plan, claimants are to vote on the terms before the court holds a final hearing to officially confirm it.

The recoveries are based on crypto prices as of the time of the bankruptcy filing. Bitcoin, the most widely traded token, had plunged more than 50 per cent in the six months prior to November, 2022. – Copyright The Financial Times

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