FTX Plans to Return 90% of Customer Funds, But There’s a Catch

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX floated an amended proposal to return up to 90% of creditor holdings held at the exchange before it went bust last November.

The debtors’ group, which is currently overseeing the bankruptcy process, will formally file the plan by December 16, 2023, to a U.S. Bankruptcy Court for perusal.

The debtors propose dividing missing customer assets into three pools based on circumstances at the start of the Chapter 11 cases: Assets segregated for FTX.com customers; Assets for FTX.US customers; and a “General Pool” of other assets.

The proposal stated that customers with a preference settlement amount of less than $250,000 can accept the settlement without any reduction of claim or payment. Preference settlement is 15% of customer withdrawals on the exchange, nine days before it went under.

Creditors would further receive a “Shortfall Claim” against the general pool corresponding to the estimated value of assets missing at their exchange – estimated to be nearly $9 billion for FTX.com and $166 million for FTX.US, the exchange’s U.S. arm.

However, recoveries could be marred by various factors, such as taxes, government claims, token price fluctuation, etc.

Furthermore, the debtors could exclude any “insiders, affiliates, customers” from the settlement who may have known the commingling and misuse of customer deposits and corporate funds, or those who changed their KYC information to facilitate withdrawals when they were halted.

The debtors said that the payouts for these customers may not reflect the fair value of the FTX Debtors’ claims.

FTX collapsed last year after CoinDesk published revelations concerning the state of its balance sheet. New CEO John J. Ray III has berated financial controls at the company, while founder Sam Bankman-Fried is undergoing trial.