FTX Account Balances: Your options at the moment
So, FTX is a thing of the past.
As of Nov 9, 2022 it seems that the balance sheets of Alameda and FTX companies had a hole of about 14 billion USD, out of which 6 billion was used to fill customer withdrawals.
The 8 billion hole was what’s left, SBF tried to get emergency funding but failed.
If FTX really filled withdrawals after being insolvent, that could be a crime — depends on jurisdiction. In the official FTX Telegram channel, the last user who posted that they got a withdrawal out was at about 8 AM PST on Nov 9.
Binance walked out of the acquisition proposal after it became known that SEC has been investigating FTX for a few months. It is not clear whether CZ knew of that or if the original intention was really to acquire a competitor.
There are some other things that will play out soon, such as FTX/Alameda involvement in the Solana ecosystem.
On Nov 10, SBF claimed on Twitter that FTX basically has enough customer funds except they are locked up in investment set ups in Alameda.
Whether or not FTX traded with customer funds and ran a fractional reserve is no longer a speculation, that is now confirmed.
That’s the situation as of now. Technically, FTX is maybe solvent but that changes according to prices of altcoins.
The only hope is that FTX manages to liquidate enough assets to cover or somewhat-cover customer withdrawals, or to raise more by trading or from investors.
If you have balance on FTX
Download your trading logs, referral logs, account details, deposits, withdrawals — everything. It looks like the employees were kept in the dark about the financial situation and when they found out, a lot of them quit. So the exchange might go offline at any time.
After that you have several options.
1/ Huobi posted they would buy TRX at parity
Justin Sun posted via Huobi Global Twitter and website that they will buy TRX and some other token balances at parity, even if they cannot withdraw. (Probably as a gesture of effective altruism /s)
The statement makes it sound like anyone is eligible, you just need to have a KYC’d account on Huobi and buy TRX on FTX. (Trading is still open on FTX.)
The statement was made while the Binance bailout was still on the table, but Justin Sun confirmed this is indeed the plan and SBF retweeted that. The price of TRX on FTX skyrocketed of course.
2/ There is an OTC market for FTX balances
The OTC trader Ochados set up an OTC Telegram channel FTXBalancesOTC for people willing to buy and willing to sell FTX balances.
Before Binance walking out, there were buyers at around 15–20 cents per dollar. Since that deal has been off, the best rate I’ve seen is 10 cents per dollar but most buyers bid 1–5 cents per dollar.
FTX trading never stopped, the exchange just added a red stripe announcing that withdrawals cannot be processed so trading on FTX is going on in an unhinged way. It looks like some traders are trying to make as much money as possible to lower the haircut they will take selling their accounts.
3/ Wait.
It seems the exchange will possibly file for bankruptcy, like Gox, which can take years or decades to settle. Alternatively SBF could liquidate all assets he can and once that’s done, apply a haircut to customer funds. Which way things will go should be clear within a few weeks.
Originally published at https://www.altcointrading.net on November 10, 2022.
