- Crypto exchange FTX has been approved to sell $873M of its assets to repay creditors
A bankruptcy court in the US has given an order approving crypto exchange FTX to sell about $873M of its assets to repay its creditors.
According to a Nov. 29 filing in a Delaware bankruptcy court, the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX has been given an approval order to sell about $873 million of its trust assets and use the proceeds to repay creditors affected by the exchange’s collapse in 2022.
The $873 million in assets will be sourced from FTX’s stakes in various trusts issued by crypto asset manager Grayscale Investments – valued at $807 million, and custody service provider Bitwise – valued at $66 million.
As seen in the document above, the Delaware bankruptcy court document references a total of $744 million in assets instead of $873 million – this is due to the valuation figure being as of Oct. 25, 2023. The assets have increased in value since.
The approval comes nearly four weeks after FTX debtors filed a motion to Judge John Dorsey on Nov. 3 requesting the sale of the six cryptocurrency trusts — including the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE), and Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW).
See Also: FTX Users Sued New Targets In Class-Action Lawsuit To Recover Lost Funds
FTX currently owns over 22 million units of GBTC, Grayscale’s flagship Bitcoin product, now worth $691 million, while its 6.3 million shares of ETHE are now worth around $106 million.
Grayscale’s Ethereum Classic Trust (ETCG), Litecoin Trust (LTCN) and Digital Large Cap Trust (GDLC) are the three other trusts that FTX can now sell to recoup funds for impacted FTX customers.
FTX’s administrators, headed by John. J Ray III, has been working to recover assets since Sam Bankman-Fried’s former empire collapsed in November 2022.
So far, around $7 billion in assets has been recovered, with nearly half of that coming in the form of cryptocurrencies ($3.4 billion).
In June, FTX’s debtors estimated the total amount of customer assets misappropriated was $8.7 billion.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried was convicted on seven fraud-related charges on Nov. 2 and is set to be sentenced on March 28. He remains in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center for the time being.
