Crypto exchanges

The CEO and chief restructuring officer at collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX is considering restarting it.

The Wall Street Journal reported that John Ray has set up a taskforce to explore the possibility.

He says the aim would be to “recover more value” to reimburse people who lost money in the now-bankrupt business.

The alternative would be to liquidate FTX’s assets or sell the platform.

Founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was recently granted bail after posting a $250 million bond guarantee, having pleaded not guilty to eight criminal charges including fraud at FTX and its sister company Alameda Research.

He is accused of using billions of dollars of funds from FTX to cover losses at trading firm Alameda.

Ray, a restructuring specialist who oversaw the aftermath of the collapse of energy and commodities giant Enron, has previously said FTX’s customer assets were “commingled” with that of Alameda.

Ray said Alameda “used client funds to engage in margin trading which exposed customer funds to massive losses” and had never “seen such a complete failure of corporate controls”.

Around $8bn of funds are estimated to be missing from FTX, which was valued at $32bn a year ago.

FTX says that around $415m of crypto has been stolen by hackers – $323m from its international exchange and $90m from its US platform – since the firm filed for bankruptcy in November.