FTX Used Billions in Customer Funds to Buy Back Binance Stake (2024)

FAQs

How much customer funds did FTX lose? ›

At Bankman-Fried's sentencing hearing, Kaplan agreed. He said FTX's customers had lost some $8bn and that its investors had lost $1.7bn.

Binance used customer funds for its own purposes in a move similar to FTX scandal: report. Binance used customer deposits for its own undisclosed purposes, according to a report from Forbes. Binance transferred $1.8 billion in stablecoin collateral to hedge funds, the report says.

Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange platform and FTX competitor, agreed to buy out FTX on Nov. 8 before the full extent of its problems went public. Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, was one of FTX's first investors.

It was created to provide a range of benefits to FTX users, including discounts on trading fees, lower withdrawal fees, and access to certain trading products. They generally have lower fees than Binance for trading futures and options contracts. However, Binance has a lower cost for spot trading.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, left, arrives at a federal courthouse in Manhattan on Feb. 16, 2023. Nearly all customers of FTX will get their money back, plus interest, after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded 17 months ago.

Tom Brady is the most famous face to promote and invest in FTX — and he also may have suffered the greatest individual loss. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback owned over 1.1 million common shares of FTX Trading, which equaled about $45 million before the company went bankrupt, according to Bloomberg.

Peter Easton, an accounting professor at the University of Notre Dame, testified that FTX customer funds were used to fund a variety of investments, including at SkyBridge Capital, the asset management firm founded by Scaramucci, former White House communications director for Donald Trump.

FTX was a leading cryptocurrency exchange that went bankrupt in November 2022 amid allegations that its owners had embezzled and misused customer funds. Sam Bankman-Fried, the CEO of the exchange, was sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to repay $11 billion.

The company will survive, however, even though its founder and CEO, Changpeng Zhao, was forced to step down as part of his plea agreement. In the world of federal white-collar prosecutions, where the government usually gets what it wants, Binance's survival is a victory for the defense.

Its position was thought to be around 5% of the total, worth around $580m before the currency crashed. In 2019, Binance had invested as a shareholder in FTX. It exited that shareholding last year and received $2.1b in Binance's own stablecoin (BUSD) and in FTT tokens as part of the deal.

How could FTX have been prevented? ›

If global legislators and regulators had acted as cryptocurrencies grew over 14 years from nothing into a massive $10 trillion global business, the FTX debacle would likely not have occurred.

Here are some possible consequences of a Binance shutdown: A sharp drop in the prices of #bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Binance accounts for a large share of the global crypto trading volume and liquidity. If Binance were to cease operations, it would create a supply shock and a panic sell-off in the market.

What happened to FTX? FTX and FTX.US crashed due to a lack of liquidity and mismanagement of funds, followed by a large volume of withdrawals from rattled investors. The value of FTT plummeted, taking other coins down with it including Ethereum and Bitcoin, which reached a two-year low on Nov. 9, 2022.

The various regulatory and legal issues faced by the exchange are serious, but so far it does not seem to be at risk of an FTX-style collapse. Unfortunately, if Binance does follow in FTX's footsteps, it could happen extremely quickly.

Under threat of enforcement actions by U.S. agencies, Binance's empire is quaking. Over the past three months, more than a dozen senior executives have left, and the exchange has laid off at least 1,500 employees this year to cut costs and prepare for a decline in business.

The company said it recovered property valued between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion, drawn from assets held by the U.S. Justice Department, authorities in Australia and the Bahamas, and dozens of private parties.

At its peak in July 2021, the company had over one million users and was the third-largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume.

Once it finishes selling all of its assets, FTX will have as much as $16.3 billion in cash to distribute, according to a company statement. It owes more than 2 million customers and other non-governmental creditors about $11 billion.

How is FTX able to repay its customers? FTX is repaying its customers through the liquidation of its assets, which have appreciated significantly in value, and through the positive effects of a bullish cryptocurrency market.