On Tuesday, bankrupt crypto firm FTX announced that $415 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from the exchange’s accounts, representing a sizable portion of the identified assets the company is attempting to recover.
Lawyers and advisors for FTX debtors updated the total liquid assets identified for recovery in a presentation titled “Maximizing FTX Recoveries,” stating that they are valued at approximately $5.5 billion.
However, the company said in a statement that this includes “unauthorised third-party transfers” of $323 million from FTX.com (the international business) and $90 million from FTX US. Another $2 million in cryptocurrency was stolen from hedge fund Alameda Research. The missing cryptocurrency could be linked to a hack of FTX’s systems discovered shortly after the company’s demise in November.
According to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, the stolen cryptocurrency was worth $477 million at the time.
After a wave of withdrawals crippled the exchange and sister hedge fund Alameda, FTX declared bankruptcy. In December, federal prosecutors indicted founder and ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried on fraud and money laundering charges. Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to the charges in January and was released on a $250 million bond ahead of his October trial.
Advisors at FTX are also considering a $2.1 billion share repurchase payment from FTX to the cryptocurrency exchange Binance in the third quarter of 2021. Binance was the first outside investor in FTX, but in 2021, Bankman-Fried purchased Binance’s stake in his company.
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao was asked about the potential $2.1 billion clawback as part of FTX’s bankruptcy proceedings on CNBC in December.
“I think we’ll leave that to the lawyers,” Zhao replied when asked if he was willing to return the money. “I believe our legal team is more than capable of handling it.”
The 20-page presentation from FTX’s lawyers and advisers breaks down the company’s assets and where they are looking for potential recoveries that can be returned to debtors. This includes property worth hundreds of millions of dollars in the Bahamas, where Bankman-Fried lived and ran the company.
“We are making significant progress in our efforts to maximise recoveries, and it has taken a Herculean investigative effort from our team to uncover this preliminary information,” said John Ray, who is serving as acting CEO at FTX during the restructuring, in a statement released on Tuesday.
Despite distinguishing between liquid and illiquid tokens, the presentation included $529 million in FTX’s self-issued token, FTT, as one of the exchange’s “liquid” assets. Since early November, FTT has lost more than 90% of its value.
