FTX sums up: customers are missing about 9 billion dollars. .. And this is not the final result.
Officially, FTX is missing out on a huge amount of money from its customers. But how much exactly? Something like $9 billion, according to the company. In a recent preliminary analysis by the company itself, FTX presents its first findings to shareholders. And it confirms the worst: a “huge deficit”as only about $2.2 billion of client assets were discovered. What’s more, only a small fraction of that amount — $694 million — is available in cash, whether it’s cash, stablecoins, bitcoin, or ether.
FTX sums up: loses about $9 billion from customers
One of the reasons FTX found itself in this awkward position was, to say the least, that it borrowed funds from clients through its trading company, Alameda Research. The presentation claims Alameda has received at least $9.3 billion in FTX customer funds. Another $191 million envelope was borrowed by Alameda from clients of its US-based exchange, FTX US.
Although FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said that FTX US is completely isolated from FTX, the company’s latest analysis shows that FTX US is also running a deficit of hundreds of millions of dollars.
and this is not the final result
“It took a huge effort to get this far,” John J. Ray III, the current CEO of FTX, said in a statement after filing for bankruptcy. “The assets of the exchange were extremely mixed, the books were incomplete or, in most cases, completely absent. For these reasons, it is important to understand that this information is preliminary and subject to change. We believe it is more important to be transparent to shareholders by releasing data now rather than waiting for more certainty.”
FTX was once one of the largest exchanges in the world. Unfortunately, last November there were reports that a subsidiary of Alameda Research was insolvent. Shortly thereafter, competitor Binance liquidated its stake in the FTX cryptocurrency, the FTT token. In just a few days, her clients withdrew billions of dollars from the exchange. A week later, FTX filed for bankruptcy. Evidence soon surfaced that Sam Bankman-Freed was misusing client funds, leading to his arrest and charges of securities fraud.
Meanwhile, Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, pleaded guilty last December to a series of fraud charges. She faces up to 120 years in prison. Caroline Ellison also agreed to cooperate with the prosecutor in the case against Sam Bankman-Freed.