Crypto Trading Firm Wintermute Given Seat on Key FTX Creditor Committee
The crypto firms and individual investors will play a key role in representing the issues of the million or so potentially owed money by Sam Bankman-Fried’s company
Dec 15, 2022 at 4:32 p.m. UTC
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Crypto trading firm Wintermute Asia PTE. has gained a seat on the coveted creditors’ committee for FTX, allowing it to steer decisions about the winding up of the failed crypto exchange alongside entities from the Caribbean, Hong Kong and U.S, according to a Thursday court filing.
The Department of Justice has named Octopus Information Ltd., Gibraltar-based Wincent Investment Fund and a number of individual investors to represent the potentially million people owed money by the collapse of the Bahamas-based firm, whose founder Sam Bankman-Fried is now in a Bahamas jail.
“We had a tremendous response” to the request to sit on the committee, U.S. Trustee Juliet Sarkessian told a bankruptcy court in Delaware on Wednesday, citing difficulties in gathering a group of people from across the world.
“We are moving as expeditiously as possible” to set the committee up, Sarkessian, a Department of Justice official charged with administering the bankruptcy process, added.
The committee, responsible for representing those who are hoping to be repaid at the conclusion of bankruptcy proceedings – specifically the unsecured creditors who have no claim on FTX collateral – will also include hedge fund Coincident Capital, GGC International (a Bermuda-based affiliate of Genesis Trading, which shares a parent company with CoinDesk in Digital Currency Group) and Hong Kong’s Pulsar Global, the filing said.
On Friday the Delaware court will hear a controversial proposal to redact personal information rather than publishing a full – and potentially very long – list of creditors.
On Tuesday, CoinDesk reported moves to create a separate committee to represent the distinct needs of foreign creditors of Bankman-Fried’s sprawling empire.
Octopus Information is unrelated to London-based venture capital company Octopus Ventures.
CORRECTION (Dec. 16, 2022, 10:44 UTC): Clarifies that Octopus Information is the company involved, not the hedge fund Octopus Investments.
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Jack Schickler was a CoinDesk reporter focused on crypto regulations, based in Brussels, Belgium. He doesn’t own any crypto.