All posts tagged: FTX

Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its m back | Silicon Valley

Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its $5m back | Silicon Valley

Published by skeptic

Multiple events hosted at a historic former hotel in Berkeley, California, have brought together people from intellectual movements popular at the highest levels in Silicon Valley while platforming prominent people linked to scientific racism, the Guardian reveals. But because of alleged financial ties between the non-profit that owns the building – Lightcone Infrastructure (Lightcone) – and jailed crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried, the administrators of FTX, Bankman-Fried’s failed crypto exchange, are demanding the return of almost $5m that new court filings allege were used to bankroll the purchase of the property. During the last year, Lightcone and its director, Oliver Habryka, have made the $20m Lighthaven Campus available for conferences and workshops associated with the “longtermism”, “rationalism” and “effective altruism” (EA) communities, all of which often see empowering the tech sector, its elites and its beliefs as crucial to human survival in the far future. At these events, movement influencers rub shoulders with startup founders and tech-funded San Francisco politicians – as well as people linked to eugenics and scientific racism. Since acquiring the Lighthaven property …

Nearly all FTX customers are getting their money back: What to know

Nearly all FTX customers are getting their money back: What to know

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Nearly all customers of FTX will get their money back, plus interest, after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded 17 months ago. FTX, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2022, said in a court filing Tuesday that between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion would be available for distribution. Under the proposed reimbursement plan, customers and creditors owed $50,000 or less will get about 118% of their claim, according to the filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. That covers about 98% of FTX customers. After paying claims in full, the plan provides for supplemental interest payments to the extent that funds still remain. The interest rate for most creditors is 9%. Although customers will be reimbursed the cash value of their cryptocurrency assets at the time of FTX’s collapse plus some interest, that’s far short of how much money those assets would be worth today given crypto’s resurgence. The price of bitcoin today, for instance, is about three times what it was in November 2022. What is FTX? FTX was co-founded in …

FTX says it will return money to most of its customers

FTX says it will return money to most of its customers

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The FTX logo appears on home plate umpire Jansen Visconti’s jacket at a baseball game with the Minnesota Twins on Sept. 27, 2022, in Minneapolis. Bruce Kluckhohn/AP hide caption toggle caption Bruce Kluckhohn/AP The FTX logo appears on home plate umpire Jansen Visconti’s jacket at a baseball game with the Minnesota Twins on Sept. 27, 2022, in Minneapolis. Bruce Kluckhohn/AP FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded, and some will get more than that. FTX said in a court filing late Tuesday that it owes about $11.2 billion to its creditors. The exchange estimates that it has between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to distribute to them. The filing said that after paying claims in full, the plan provides for supplemental interest payments to creditors, to the extent that funds still remain. The interest rate for most creditors is 9%. That may be a diminished consolation for investors who were trading cryptocurrency on the exchange when it collapsed. …

FTX will return money to most customers less than 2 years after catastrophic crypto collapse

FTX will return money to most customers less than 2 years after catastrophic crypto collapse

Published by skeptic

FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded, and some will get more than that. FTX said in a court filing late Tuesday that it owes about $11.2 billion to its creditors. The exchange estimates that it has between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to distribute to them. The filing said that after paying claims in full, the plan provides for supplemental interest payments to creditors, to the extent that funds still remain. The interest rate for most creditors is 9%. That may be a diminished consolation for investors who were trading cryptocurrency on the exchange when it collapsed. When FTX sought bankruptcy protection in November 2022, bitcoin was going for $16,080. But crypto prices have soared as the economy recovered while the assets at FTX were sorted out over the past two years. A single bitcoin on Tuesday was selling for close to $62,675. That comes out to a 290% loss, a bit less than that if accrued …

FTX reports a shocking billion dollar surplus after bankruptcy

FTX reports a shocking billion dollar surplus after bankruptcy

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Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has accumulated billions of dollars more than necessary to cover the losses incurred during its collapse in November 2022. FTX CEO John Ray voiced his astonishment at the milestone in a commentary to Bloomberg, indicating the exchange’s ability to fully reimburse its over 2 million customers. With the upcoming sale of its assets, FTX is expected to have approximately $16.3 billion in cash, surpassing its $11 billion debt to customers and other non-governmental creditors. Ray said: In any bankruptcy, this is just an unbelievable result. While bankruptcy victims will receive full payments with interest, court documents suggest that equity holders are unlikely to receive any residual amounts. Depending on the type of claim, some creditors could potentially recover up to 142% of their owed amounts. Still, most customers may receive 118% of their account balances at the time of the bankruptcy filing. FTX’s restructuring advisers suggested setting up a fund to compensate certain creditors, using funds that would have otherwise been collected by regulatory bodies. The timeline for this initiative is …

FTX Customers Poised to Recover All Funds Lost in Collapse

FTX Customers Poised to Recover All Funds Lost in Collapse

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Customers of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX are poised to recover all of the money they lost when the firm collapsed in 2022 and receive interest on top of it, the company’s bankruptcy lawyers said on Tuesday. The announcement was a landmark in the attempt to track down the $8 billion in customer assets that disappeared when FTX imploded virtually overnight, setting off a crisis in the crypto industry. Under a plan filed in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware, virtually all FTX’s creditors, including hundreds of thousands of ordinary investors who used the exchange to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, would receive cash payments equivalent to 118 percent of the assets they had stored on FTX, the lawyers said. Those payments would flow from a pool of assets that FTX’s lawyers have pulled together in the 17 months since the exchange collapsed, the lawyers said. They tapped a wide range of sources, including digital currencies that FTX still owned when it filed for bankruptcy and company assets like shares in start-ups, which could be sold to …

FTX Creditors Say Payout Deal Is ‘an Insult’—and Plan to Revolt

FTX Creditors Say Payout Deal Is ‘an Insult’—and Plan to Revolt

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Some creditors of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX are preparing to reject a plan that would see them recover 118 percent of the money they lost. The proposal is far less generous than it might seem, they claim. Starting in January, the FTX creditors began to form a voting block, now made up of 1,600 claimants. The new plan is due to be put to a vote in June; the leaders of the block—Sunil Kavuri and Arush Sehgal—will urge members to vote against its approval. “The recovery percentages are drawn from a fake baseline. It’s a false narrative,” says Sehgal. “It’s an insult to creditors.” FTX fell to pieces in November 2022 after running dry of funds with which to process customer withdrawals. Billions of dollars’ worth of customer funds was missing. A year later, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy in connection with the collapse of the exchange. In April, he was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. Filed on Tuesday, the FTX bankruptcy plan charts …

FTX crypto fraud victims to get their money back — plus interest

FTX crypto fraud victims to get their money back — plus interest

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Bankruptcy lawyers representing customers impacted by the dramatic crash of cryptocurrency exchange FTX 17 months ago say that the vast majority of victims will receive their money back — plus interest. The news comes six months after FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was found guilty on seven counts related to fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering, with some $8 billion of customers’ funds going missing. SBF was hit with a 25-year prison sentence in March, and ordered to pay $11 billion in forfeiture. The crypto mogul filed an appeal last month that could last years. Restructuring After filing for bankruptcy in late 2022, SBF stood down and U.S. attorney John J. Ray III was brought in as CEO and “chief restructuring officer,” charged with overseeing FTX’s reorganization. Shortly after taking over, Ray said in testimony that despite some of the audits that had been done previously at FTX, he didn’t “trust a single piece of paper in this organization.” In the months that followed, Ray and his team set about tracking the missing funds, …

FTX investors to get their money back – plus interest | Business News

FTX investors to get their money back – plus interest | Business News

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People who lost their money in FTX, once one of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, are to be paid back, with interest. Billions were lost when the cryptocurrency exchange headed by convicted fraudster Sam Bankman Fried went bust in November 2022, with an estimated one million customers losing funds. Money latest: Struggling iconic tea brand spends £12m on ad But now the company has recouped more than enough to repay those customers and its creditors, it said. Paying people back If plans are approved by a US bankruptcy court, people who held cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, with the exchange will be able to get the sums back. Some will be able to get up to 9% more in interest. Between $14.5 (£11.6bn) and $16.3bn (£13.04bn) is available to be distributed, FTX said, the combined value of property collected and converted to cash. Its debts, however, only add up to about $11bn (£8.81bn). FTX has been able to monetise “an extraordinarily diverse collection of assets”, most of which were investments made by FTX or …

Ex-FTX Europe chief pays record .5M for Titanic gold watch

Ex-FTX Europe chief pays record $1.5M for Titanic gold watch

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The former head of FTX Europe has paid the highest sum ever for a piece of Titanic memorabilia. Patrick Gruhn reportedly paid $1.5 million for a gold pocket watch recovered from the ship’s richest passenger, The Wall Street Journal stated. The watch was owned by John Jacob Astor IV, an American real estate tycoon, who was aboard the ill-fated ship with his pregnant wife, Madeleine Astor, after their honeymoon in Europe. When the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912, an officer told Astor that he would not be able to board a lifeboat until all women and children were safely evacuated. A week later, Astor’s body was found in the water, along with his possessions—a 14-karat gold watch, gold and diamond cuff links, a diamond ring, and a gold pencil, according to the report. The timepiece was expected to fetch between £100,000 and £150,000, but vastly exceeded expectations. Gruhn revealed that he used funds obtained from the sale of his companies to purchase the historic watch for his wife, Maren Gruhn. However, he added that …