FTX debtors recover $7B, say investigation has been ‘extraordinarily challenging’

CEO John J. Ray noted that it was “extraordinarily challenging” to track the assets

article-image

mundissima/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Debtors have recovered approximately $7 billion in liquid assets from FTX, according to new court documents. 

While this still falls short of the roughly $8.7 billion that the exchange owes to its customers, the gap appears to be closing. However, it is unclear whether the $7 billion will go toward the money owed to customers.

“As in the form of fiat currency and stablecoin that had been misappropriated. Despite the ongoing challenges created by the commingling of customer deposits and corporate assets, and other mismanagement of the FTX Group, the Debtors continue to make substantial progress in their ongoing efforts to identify, secure and recover assets for the estate,” a recent filing stated. 

According to the court documents, it was “extraordinarily challenging” to track the assets due to the “commingling and misuse of FTX.com customer deposits occurred for several years.” 

The debtors in charge of the FTX estate had to differentiate between the operating funds for the FTX Group and FTX.com customer deposits. 

The 38-page document details FTX’s spending, including former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s political donations. Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives made roughly $100 million in donations.

FTX also spent over $240 million on real estate in the Bahamas. The debtors were able to track transfers between an Alameda account and FTX worth $2.2 billion of commingled funds. 

“The FTX Group funded these real estate purchases from accounts that held commingled customer and corporate funds…The FTX Group purchased most of this real estate through a subsidiary, FTX Property Holdings Ltd., which was incorporated in the Bahamas in July 2021,” the document states. 

The report is the latest in CEO John J. Ray’s investigation into the company. Back in April, Ray disclosed the inner workings of FTX, revealing that FTX did not properly keep track of employee payrolls.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Upcoming Events

Brooklyn, NY

SUN - MON, JUN. 22 - 23, 2025

Blockworks and Cracked Labs are teaming up for the third installment of the Permissionless Hackathon, happening June 22–23, 2025 in Brooklyn, NY. This is a 36-hour IRL builder sprint where developers, designers, and creatives ship real projects solving real problems across […]

Industry City | Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

morpho 2 graphic.png

Research

Utilizing a ‘DeFi Mullet’ approach, Coinbase’s Bitcoin-backed loans integration with Morpho demonstrates a powerful blueprint for CEXs to monetize dormant assets by expanding adoption of wrapped products (cbBTC, USDC) while also supporting native and/or preferred DeFi ecosystems (Base) which can further lead to downstream growth in onchain liquidity and increased utilization of the related assets.

article-image

The firm behind Helium announced that it reached a settlement with the SEC

article-image

SKALE’s Jack O’Holleran said that certain metrics are becoming more important to gauging the success of a project

article-image

Mary Gooneratne, co-founder of Solana DeFi startup Loopscale, wants to give blockchain borrow-lend a facelift

article-image

BlackRock, Fidelity and others had their spot ETH EFTs approved, and we may see more crypto products come to market

article-image

Inflation reached a five-month low in March, but 10% blanket levy may impact prices

article-image

The administration announced a pause on reciprocal tariffs, but the bond market shows signs of trouble