FTX Bankruptcy: Fallen Exchange To Amass up to $5,100,000,000 More Than What Users Lost at Time of Collapse

The bankrupt crypto exchange FTX now has holdings worth billions of dollars more than the legally approved claims made by its creditors.

A recently filed disclosure statement indicates that FTX’s bankruptcy estate estimates it will hold net distributable proceeds between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion on September 30th, the projected start date for the exchange’s reorganization plan.

FTX only owes creditors approximately $11.2 billion, putting the bankrupt exchange’s creditors in a position to recover between 118% and 142% of their claim values, according to the disclosure statement.

However, FTX’s creditors’ digital asset claims are denominated in dollars and based on the near-bottom crypto prices at the time of the disgraced exchange’s collapse in November 2022. Crypto prices had cratered at the time due to the FTX turmoil and the related contagion spreading throughout the sector.

Bitcoin (BTC), for example, was trading at around $16,600 on November 14th, 2022, compared to $61,435 at time of writing. Ethereum (ETH) was trading at around $1,250, compared to $2,969, currently.

The increased dollar payouts for FTX creditors are thanks to the soaring crypto prices this year and the exchange’s sale of a stake in the AI (artificial intelligence) safety and research company Anthropic.

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty late last year of defrauding investors and mishandling billions of dollars worth of customer funds related to the multi-billion-dollar downfall of the exchange in 2022.

On March 28th, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Bankman-Fried to 25 years in prison and three years of supervised release. He also ordered the 32-year-old to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. Bankman-Fried is appealing his conviction and sentence.

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