The new FTX management has located over $5 billion in liquid assets. According to FTX attorney Andy Dietderich, the struggling cryptocurrency exchange has "recovered $5 billion in cash and liquid cryptocurrency." However, the exchange is still "working to reconstruct transaction history," with the total customer shortfall "Still unclear." Assets recovered do not include assets confiscated by the Bahamas Securities Commission, which primarily consisted of the exchange’s native token, the FTX token, with a total market capitalization of $444.7 million at the time of publication.
Speaking before a U.S. bankruptcy judge in Delaware on Jan. 11, Dietderich also said the company plans to sell $4.6 billion worth of non-strategic investments, including subsidiaries such as LedgerX, Embed, FTX Japan and FTX Europe. These companies are independent of FTX and have separate accounts. FTX Japan has drawn up plans to return client funds. Additionally, FTX will terminate its 2021-2028 sponsorship agreement with the popular multiplayer online battle arena game League of Legends. In response, presiding judge John Dorsey granted FTX’s request to sell FTX Europe and other business units. Dietderich said the company would study bids but would not commit to a sale.
FTX has total liabilities of $8.8 billion. At the time, sources said the exchange had little cash and liquid digital assets, with an estimated $8 billion hole on its balance sheet. At a Jan. 11 hearing, FTX won court approval to keep clients’ names private for three months after they raised concerns about potential identity theft.
FTX’s infamous founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, has pleaded not guilty to all criminal charges related to the fallout of the exchange. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York formed a task force to “trace and recover” lost FTX customer funds and handle investigations and prosecutions related to the exchange’s collapse. U.S. lawmakers had previously called on the court to approve an “independent examiner” in the FTX bankruptcy case due to concerns about conflicts of interest, but the presiding judge rejected it.
