It should be noted that there have been many curiosities in the proceedings regarding the activity of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and trading company Alameda. Above all, they involve bankruptcy liquidators – that is, people who search for the companies’ assets for further use in compensating users.

As it became known in January 2023, Alameda’s liquidators are not particularly familiar with blockchain and how decentralised platforms work, and this has already led to losses. For example, they have previously removed collateral for a certain trading position or loan, causing major amounts to be liquidated over time. This means that the Expert Advisors essentially lost users’ money where it was not necessary at all. More information on this is written in a separate article.

Now the new representatives of the company have shared information about the current financial state of the exchange. And it has a lot of problems.

What’s going on with the FTX crypto exchange

Specifically, experts have been able to locate $2.2 billion in assets. Of these, only the equivalent of $694 million is most liquid – Bitcoin, Etherium and traditional currencies. The total amount of the hole in the exchange’s budget is more than $11.6 billion. Of that amount, $9.3 billion is in the form of a loan to trading company Alameda Research.

The liquidity of cryptocurrencies means their ability to be traded in a short period of time and in relatively large volumes without significant price loss. The logic here is simple: there are sure to be buyers in the market for bitcoins equivalent to tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, so selling the first cryptocurrency is likely to be no problem. At the same time, it will be difficult to find new investors for a little-known token, which means that the seller will be forced to lower the price for the transaction. Accordingly, the nominal value of illiquid cryptocurrencies on FTX's balance sheet will have nothing to do with the actual selling price, and everything here is explained by the number of people willing to buy the digital assets.

Lawyers are now working to find and account for assets that could be used to compensate investors and creditors affected by the exchange’s bankruptcy. Current FTX CEO John Ray III said his team is facing a tough task. Here is the lawyer’s pertinent rejoinder.

It has taken a huge effort to get this far. The exchange’s assets have been badly jumbled and its accounting and records inaccurate, in addition to in many cases completely missing information about the transactions that have taken place.

The information about FTX’s found, liquid, illiquid and missing funds is at the moment preliminary, which means that the court cannot draw conclusions from it yet. However, Ray believes that the legal team should have shared the findings. He continues.

We believe it is more important to provide transparency to stakeholders and make this information public now than to wait until we can reach certainty.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried claimed before the collapse of the US division of the FTX US exchange and even several times afterwards that it was allegedly fully solvent. According to Decrypt’s sources, such claims have nothing to do with reality. Here is the relevant rejoinder from the case file.

Today, the wallets associated with the FTX US exchange hold $191 million in assets, along with $28 million in customer receivables and $155 million in receivables from other parties. This compares to $335 million in customer debt and $283 million in related-party receivables.

The presentation also mentioned the withdrawal of funds from FTX US and the main FTX platform, with the whereabouts of these assets not later identified. That loss column noted $432 million.

There has also been an update on the amount of liquid assets currently being recovered and held by the liquidator group – this has increased from $5.5 billion to $6.1 billion since the last report in January. While this increase is mainly the result of a local market bounce, the group has also returned $202 million in assets held by Alameda, as well as $125 million in Stablecoin and $57 million in various cryptocurrencies held at subsidiaries.

Note that some FTX subsidiaries have indeed proved solvent. In particular, on 21 February 2023, the management of a Japanese subsidiary called FTX Japan opened a crypto-asset withdrawal for its users. During the first day, 7,026 users withdrew their crypto-assets from the platform, with the equivalent of $50 million.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried himself remains under house arrest at his parents’ home in California. He was recently denied a motion regarding his ability to communicate with witnesses in the case via messenger. The court considered that this could be a significant influence on the trial.


It appears that the cryptocurrency exchange FTX has too many coins in its possession to be considered liquid. Consequently, it will not be possible to get rid of them at a normal price, which means that the company's financial performance is far from the figures that were announced by the giant's representatives in the past. And this is another reason for problems from US financial regulators, who have already launched an investigation into the bankrupt crypto-exchange.