The cryptocurrency exchange FTX has collapsed and filed for bankruptcy, deflating the entire crypto market with it.
In brief, here’s what’s happened. Chanpeng Zhao, CEO of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, once owned a 20% stake in FTX. He and FTX’s CEO, supposed crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, maintained a friendly rivalry. Bankman-Fried, known to the technorati as SBF (Zhao is “CZ”), bought out Zhao’s stake using crypto tokens issued by FTX in 2021. In early November of 2022, following the souring of CZ and SBF’s relationship, the Binance CEO sold those tokens, sending their value tumbling. In response, FTX users scrambled to withdraw some $US6 ($8) billion in less than 72 hours, money that FTX did not have on hand, largely because it had transferred the assets to its sister company, Alameda Research. Alameda Research made risky crypto bets that didn’t pay off, preventing it from returning SBF announced on Nov. 8 that Binance would acquire FTX, effectively bailing the beleaguered exchange out. CZ did some due diligence, though, and backed out of the deal. SBF desperately sought out investors, who didn’t materialise. Thus FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections in Delaware court.
Because FTX is a tangled network of companies, shells, and related entities, its bankruptcy proceedings promise to be complicated. To make things easier to follow, researcher Seamus Hughes, Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, compiled all the bankruptcy court filings into one handy list. This post originally appeared in Hughes’ newsletter, Court Watch.
It’s been a busy week in the cryptocurrency world, to say the least. With FTX collapsing and a lot of moving parts, I thought it may be useful to pull all the bankruptcy filings made so far.
FTX Bankruptcy:
- FTX Crypto Services
- FTX Ventures Ltd
- FTX Canada
- FTX Structured Products
- FTX Trading GmbH
- FTX EMEA Ltd
- FTX Digital Assets LLC
- FTX Zuma Ltd
- FTX Japan Services KK
- FTX Certificates GmbH
- FTX Property Holdings Ltd
- FTX Exchange FZE
- FTX Digital Holdings (Singapore) Pte Ltd
- Alameda Research LLC
- FTX Lend Inc.
- FTX US Services, Inc.
- FTX Switzerland GmbH
- FTX EU Ltd
- FTX Products (Singapore) Pte Ltd
- FTX TURKEY TEKNOLOJI VE TICARET ANONIM SIRKET
- FTX Marketplace, Inc
- FTX Services Solutions Ltd
- West Realm Shires Services Inc.
That’s it for now.
Reprinted from Court Watch with permission from Seamus Hughes. Subscribe via Substack.