FTX Debtors Give Details on Digital Assets Identified So Far

The FTX Debtors group has identified $1.6 billion of digital assets associated with FTX.com and $181 million connected to FTX US.

AccessTimeIconJan 17, 2023 at 9:02 p.m. UTC
Updated Feb 9, 2023 at 1:17 p.m. UTC
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FTX Trading and its affiliated debtors, collectively known as the FTX Debtors, have provided details on the digital assets they’ve identified so far in their attempts to recover funds from the bankrupt crypto exchange and its subsidiaries, according to a press release on Tuesday.

Roughly half of those digital assets are already under the control of FTX Debtors, but the other half was subject to unauthorized third-party transfers after FTX filed for bankruptcy protection, as well as transferred to the control of the Securities Commission of the Bahamas in the case of FTX.com, according to the group.

Overall, the group affirmed that a total of about $5.5 billion in liquid assets have been identified, consisting of $1.7 billion in cash, $3.5 billion of crypto assets and FTT tokens and $300 million of securities. And it confirmed that based on current estimates of the amount of digital assets associated with FTX.com and FTX US, there is a “substantial shortfall” at both exchanges.

Regarding FTX.com, the FTX debtors have identified $1.6 billion of digital assets associated with FTX.com, of which $323 million “was subject to unauthorized third-party transfers post-petition, $426 million of which was transferred to cold storage under the control of The Securities Commission of The Bahamas, $742 million of which is in cold storage under the control of the FTX Debtors, and $121 million of which is pending transfer to cold storage under the control of the FTX Debtors.”

With respect to FTX US, the debtors have identified roughly $181 million of digital assets, “$90 million of which was subject to unauthorized third-party transfers post-petition, $88 million of which is in cold storage under the control of the FTX Debtors, and $3 million of which is pending transfer to cold storage under the control of the FTX Debtors.”

This implies that a total of $413 million worth of crypto has been stolen from both FTX and FTX US, since the exchange's bankruptcy.

"We are making important progress in our efforts to maximize recoveries, and it has taken a Herculean investigative effort from our team to uncover this preliminary information," said John J. Ray III, the CEO and chief restructuring officer of the FTX Debtors, in the press release. He noted that the information is still subject to change.

UPDATE (Jan. 18, 05:36 UTC): Adds details on the stolen crypto.


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Nelson Wang

Nelson Wang was CoinDesk's news editor for the East Coast. He holds BTC and ETH above CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.


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