bankruptcy of FTX It was, along with the fall of Terra, one of the most important scandals in the world of cryptocurrencies in 2022. Overnight, Sam Bankman-Fried’s empire collapsed amid accusations of fraud, money laundering and missing funds. And the story still has several chapters to be written in this 2023, but with a particularity: the new CEO of the company does not rule out the possibility of reopening the exchange.
He stated so John J Ray III, who was appointed as CEO of FTX after the firm filed for Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Law. In his first public interview since he took office, the manager told The Wall Street Journal that the option of the platform operating again is still on the table. Although it will not be easy to achieve.
The attorney, who has handled some of corporate America’s most notorious bankruptcies of the past 40 years, including Enron, has established a team to to analyze the feasibility of restarting FTX.comthe global version of exchange of cryptocurrencies.
“Everything is on the table. If there’s a way forward on that, then we’ll not just explore it, we’ll do it,” he said, of a possible reopening of FTX. According to Ray, some of the creditors who are cooperating in the bankruptcy process have acknowledged that there is good technology behind the platform. And they believe that it deserves to be exploited, regardless of the criminal actions of the company’s previous executives. “There are stakeholders that we are working with that have identified what they see as a viable business,” he said.
The reopening of FTX is not ruled out, although much remains to be resolved
The words of John J. Ray III open up a new panorama of possibilities for FTX and its users. It is that, until now, no one had considered the option of the platform resuming its operations. The only thing that had been emphasized—publicly, at least—had been try to recover funds from clients to return them to them.
But beyond what was said by the now CEO of the exchange crypto, any resolution on its future is far from final. The executive in charge of the bankruptcy assured from the beginning that the management of Sam Bankman-Fried had been a disaster. to the point such that there was no central registry of its own assets or those of third parties under the control of the firm.
Likewise, he criticized the co-founder of FTX for the lack of control of expenses, as well as for the lack of transparency in financial records. But that’s not all, since work is still underway to recover the cryptocurrencies and bank accounts belonging to the company. Although the detection of a “substantial deficit” in client funds, both for their use to finance the operation of Alameda Research, and for what has been stolen.
In fact, although Sam Bankman-Fried assured that clients of FTX.US, the US affiliate of the platform, could be fully reimbursed, at least half of those funds have been lost in a hack.
Analyzing all possibilities pending trial
For now, John J. Ray III, I want his team to determine if reviving FTX may be beneficial for affected customers. Otherwise, the fund recovery plan will continue to return them to the victims, which may also include the liquidation of the company’s assets or the sale of the exchange crypto.
While this is happening, investigations into the maneuvers of SBF and its partners continue. The former CEO of the company has pleaded not guilty, but faces charges that could land him in prison for the rest of his life. Two of its main sides, Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison, have already pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy and are collaborating with the US justice system. FTX fraud trial to begin on October 2.