FTX CEO’s Legal Billings Continue to Hint at ‘2.0 Reboot’
In his most recent billing cycle, John Ray III spent slightly over 6.5 hours reviewing and working on materials related to what is believed to be FTX 2.0.
John Ray III, the newly appointed CEO of FTX, who is responsible for managing the bankruptcy process of the disgraced exchange, hinted earlier this year that there might be a possibility of rebooting the exchange.
Recent entries in Ray’s billing report indicate that efforts are underway to make this reboot a reality.
Filings show that Ray dedicated 6.7 hours to tasks associated with “2.0,” which is widely speculated to refer to FTX 2.0, a revamped version of the exchange.
As of now, there is no concrete evidence, apart from speculative statements, to confirm the existence of a definite plan to relaunch the exchange, except for internal sketches. However, Ray has not completely ruled out the possibility.
Ray stated in January, “Everything is on the table. If there is a path forward on that, then we will not only explore that, we’ll do it,” during an interview with the Journal.
In April, FTX’s lead attorney, Andy Dietderich, suggested the potential restart of the cryptocurrency exchange, which would require substantial capital and might offer customers future participation in the exchange. He emphasized that this is just one of many possibilities, and no final decisions have been made.
Tribe Capital, a venture capital firm, has reportedly expressed interest in leading a funding round to relaunch the exchange.
However, industry insiders have raised concerns about the feasibility of such a plan due to persistent technical issues, notably high latency and software bugs, that have plagued FTX since its inception and contributed to its financial collapse in 2022.
Considering the extensive work required to address FTX’s trading engine and other bugs, it might be more practical to build an entirely new exchange from scratch, avoiding the associated challenges of the existing platform.
Following this news, FTX’s former token, FTT, saw a 12% increase in value according to CoinGecko data. However, if FTX is restarted, it is unlikely that FTT would have a significant role as it is considered a security by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
