FTX Assets Worth $3.5bn Held By Bahamas Securities Regulator – The failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s assets were seized, according to the Bahamas Securities Regulator, who intends to return them to creditors and former customers. The assets were valued at $3.5 billion (£2.9 billion). The Bahamas’ Securities Commission announced that it had moved all digital assets held by or under the management of FTX Digital Markets, an FTX subsidiary operating out of the Bahamas, to its own digital wallets for “safekeeping.”
The transfer happened on November 12, the day after the larger FTX business—which consists of numerous affiliates and the trading arm Alameda Research—filed for US bankruptcy protection. The commission said in a statement: “The digital assets transferred on 12 November 2022 to digital wallets under the exclusive control of the commission are being held by the commission on a temporary basis, until such time as the Bahamas supreme court directs the commission to deliver them to the customers and creditors who own them.”
People Also Read: Kraken Shutting Down Crypto Exchange in Japan Citing Weak Global Crypto Market
It added that the assets could also be released to customers and creditors via the company’s liquidators. Without providing any additional information regarding the types of digital assets it had seized, the commission stated that the assets were valued at more than $3.5 billion “based on market pricing at the time of transfer”. One of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world at one point, FTX, failed in November as customers rushed to remove billions of dollars from the company out of concern for the true state of its balance sheet.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the company’s founder and former CEO, who was based in the Bahamas, was subsequently charged in the US with fraud, conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to defraud the US, and conspiracy to break campaign financing laws. He was released on $250 million bail after being extradited to the US last week. On January 3 at a federal court in New York, 30-year-old Bankman-Fried is anticipated to enter a plea to the charges. Caroline Ellison, the former chief executive of FTX’s sister company, the hedge fund Alameda, agreed to plead guilty to seven offences including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering.
READ MORE
Media Report Unveils China to Launch Digital Asset Trading Platform
Goldman Sachs Boss Unveils Plan To Cut Jobs Amid Global Economy Fears
Jack Dorsey’s – Block Officially Building Open Bitcoin Mining System
