Major customers of the defunct FTX digital asset exchange will finally — no, really — start receiving their long-overdue repayments

Major customers of the defunct FTX digital asset exchange will finally — no, really — start receiving their long-overdue repayments, while founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) continues to hold out

Major customers of the defunct FTX digital asset exchange will finally—no, really—start receiving their long-overdue repayments, while founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) continues to hold out faint hope for a Trump pardon.

Late last week, Bloomberg reported on a Delaware bankruptcy court proceeding in which FTX Debtors confirmed that on May 30, it will start distributing some $11.4 billion of recovered funds to FTX’s ‘major’ creditors (those owed more than $50,000). Smaller creditors began receiving payments in February, 16 months after FTX collapsed in a scandal in late 2022.

Initially, it appeared that FTX creditors—regardless of the size of their claims—would receive only a fraction of their tokens’ fiat value. But the significant appreciation in fiat value of major tokens like BTC since the dark days of ‘crypto winter’ offered hope that creditors would receive the full value of their stranded holdings.

But FTX customers are only receiving the dollar value of their tokens at the time of FTX’s bankruptcy, meaning they miss out on all the value gains since November 2022. This isn’t sitting well with customers who wanted to receive ‘in-kind’ distributions rather than a frozen-in-time dollar conversion.

But the challenges facing FTX Debtors are legion, as detailed by bankruptcy attorney Andrew Dietderich, who said FTX Debtors had received “27 quintillion” claims against the assets it holds. While many of those claims are duplicates or fraudulent, creditors are entitled to 9% annual interest on the value of their claims. So, the longer this process drags out, the greater the value of these larger claims.

Further complicating the process, payouts to creditors based in certain countries—including Russia, China, Egypt, Nigeria, and Ukraine—were deemed ineligible, although FTX Debtors is said to be ‘reviewing’ its options to get funds to these creditors. Of these blocked jurisdictions, China held the largest slice of funds owed at 8%.

Also growing are the fees the bankruptcy attorneys are collecting. In February, Bloomberg reported that the total sum paid to law firms handling FTX’s bankruptcy process was $948 million, making it one of the largest such paydays in U.S. history. The record (nearly $6 billion) is held by the bankruptcy of Wall Street financial giant Lehman Brothers following the 2008 global economic meltdown.

The largest chunk ($306 million) of this nearly billion-dollar legal windfall has gone to the firm of Alvarez and Marsal, which is advising FTX Debtors. The controversial Sullivan & Cromwell firm claimed $248.6 million, while firms representing FTX customers have received over $110 million. The consulting firm of John J. Ray III, the court-appointed CEO of FTX Debtors, has collected over $8 million.

SBF sees his prison shadow, faces 24 more years of winter

SBF, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison one year ago this week, was moved from his home at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn to a Federal Transfer Center (FTC) in Oklahoma on March 27. While the Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn’t offer explanations as to why it transfers prisoners, there are clues as to why SBF might be destined for a new permanent home.

After staying on the downlow following his sentence, SBF began something of a media tour following Donald Trump’s inauguration as U.S. president in January, starting with a February 20 audio interview with the New York Sun. Four days later, SBF tweeted for the first time in two years, disclosing that “being unemployed is a lot less relaxing than it looks.”

In early March, the day before SBF turned 33, SBF granted conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson an interview in which SBF appeared via video from his MDC cell. This appears to have been the final straw for federal officials, given that SBF hadn’s cleared the interview with MDC staff in advance as he was required to do. SBF was reportedly put in solitary confinement at MDC after the interview was made public.

Last May, SBF was briefly transferred to the FTC—the waystation for federal prisoners on the move—before being returned to MDC. At the time, it was thought the move might presage SBF being transferred to a federal prison in California in order to be closer to his parents, although this theory ultimately proved unfounded. His ‘forever’ home remains unclear at this point.

SBF rewrites history, sticks to ‘I wuz framed’ schtick

As for the content of SBF’s media blitz, he’s trying to rebrand himself as having been a closet conservative all along, presumably in the hope of securing a pardon from Trump. During the administration of Trump’s predecessor, SBF made conspicuous contributions to Democratic causes