FTX has recovered more than $5 billion in assets as the former cryptocurrency giant continues to wade through bankruptcy proceedings.
“We have located over $5 billion of cash, liquid cryptocurrency and liquid investments securities,” an FTX attorney told a Delaware judge on Wednesday.
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FTX’s bankruptcy is ongoing, and the destination for those $5 billion in assets, and any financial assets recovered in the future, is unclear at this time. (It has been reported that a further $4.6 billion in investment holdings may be able to be liquidated.)
MarketWatch’s Andy Keshner has detailed what FTX account holders need to know amid the crypto company’s bankruptcy.
Andy Dietderich, an attorney for FTX, said the true magnitude of lost customer money is still not clear. The United States Commodities Futures Trading Commission has said that missing customer assets at FTX are valued at more than $8 billion, according to a Reuters report.
Dietderich went on to say the newly recovered $5 billion does not include assets seized by the Securities Commission of the Bahamas, which were valued at $3.5 billion at the time of transfer.
Representatives for FTX did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment.
FTX was once valued at $32 billion but filed for bankruptcy in November after struggling with liquidity issues. Bankman-Fried conceded he had “f—d up, and should have done better,” and eventually resigned as CEO.
Bankman-Fried, widely known as “SBF,” was arrested last month and is facing criminal fraud charges in the United States.
He had been a significant donor to Democratic election campaigns but has said his donations were roughly divided equally between Republicans and Democrats, with so-called dark money taken into account.
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Bankman-Fried was released on $250 million bail and awaits trial.
The recovered-funds news from FTX comes as cryptocurrencies have remained in a downtrend underway roughly since notching 2021 highs.
Bitcoin’s
BTCUSD,
price is down over 60% over the past year, and the price for ether
ETHUSD,
is also down more than 60% over that period. The total market cap for all crypto nearly hit $3 trillion during 2021 before retreating to a current aggregate market cap of around $800 billion.