According to Thursday’s presentation, both FTX and FTX.US still have a “massive shortfall” and only a fraction of identified assets are actually liquid.
This Thursday, FTX published its second presentation on the ongoing effort to locate and secure the company’s funds. According to the document, both the international and the US branches of the firm has “massive” shortfalls, and only a relatively small portion of located assets are liquid.
Both FTX and FTX.US Still Have 'Massive' Shortfalls
According to a stakeholder presentation published on Thursday, March 2nd, the current management of the world’s former second-largest cryptocurrency exchange has so far identified $2.2 billion worth of assets in the wallets belonging to FTX international. The report, however, notes that only $694 million of these can be considered liquid “class A” assets—specified as fiat, stablecoin, Bitcoin, and Ethereum.
Furthermore, the presentation states that the management has identified net borrowing worth $9.4 billion from FTX.com by Alameda Research. Reports emerging quickly after the company went bankrupt indicated that such borrowing was funded with misappropriated user assets. Furthermore, Alameda’s former CEO, Caroline Ellison, confirmed in December that her company enabled and obfuscated loans worth many billions of dollars to FTX’s executives with SBF’s knowledge and consent.
Today’s presentation also paints a similarly grim picture for FTX.US. According to the document, about $191 million of assets associated with the exchange’s American branch have been uncovered. This is contrasted with $355 million of the customer and $283 million related party claims. Interestingly the presentation also states that FTX’s FTT tokens were considered liquid, class A assets until at least late January.
Why Is It So Hard to Locate FTX’s Assets?
While FTX’s current CEO, John J. Ray III, has extensive experience handling complicated bankruptcies thanks, in large part, to his navigating Enron’s collapse, the downfall of SBF’s cryptocurrency exchange has so far proven difficult to untangle. In his previous report, Ray called the work done by mid-January a “Herculean task”.
Furthermore, Ray’s claim that FTX is a worse mess than Enron became rather famous among the crypto community soon after he took over last November. Part of the reason for the dire situation can be attributed to the current CEO’s claim that the company had next to no record-keeping practices.
Ray reiterated the fact in Thursday’s presentation as well saying that the “analysis is further complicated by the incomplete nature of the books and records and financial information maintained by pre-petition management”. Another factor is the prevalent comingling of assets that took place within FTX and Alameda Research prior to the group’s bankruptcy.
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