FTX’s new boss, John Ray III, said a working group was considering reopening the platform, which has been in bankruptcy since November 11.
Unbelievable but true: FTX, the platform that caused a real earthquake in the cryptocurrency industry since its bankruptcy on November 11, could rise from its ashes. Indeed, this is a scenario that is very seriously considered by the new boss of FTX, John Ray III in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
A working group is already at work on this, wanting to wipe the slate clean. It believes that restarting the FTX.com platform would be an excellent way to re-create value for shareholders and customers, rather than liquidating the assets or selling the platform for scrap. The new management team is convinced that the FTX infrastructure itself is fully operational and has the potential to create value again.
FTX’s token, jumps
The new boss says he has already received many expressions of interest from project partners, customers, and potential new investors. It sounds hard to believe, but it is. “Everything is on the table. (…) If there’s a path forward on [this FTX restart], then we’re not just going to study that, we’re going to do it,” said John Ray III.The new boss says he has already received many expressions of interest from project partners, customers, and potential new investors. It sounds hard to believe, but it is. “Everything is on the table. (…) If there’s a path forward on [this FTX restart], then we’re not just going to study that, we’re going to do it,” said John Ray III.
In any case, some are following the bet on the crypto market, the FTT token, whose value was almost wiped out after the FTX scandal, has regained more than 20% since yesterday due to this news.
The announcement was overly welcomed by former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried, who continues to claim that FTX’s U.S. subsidiary is solvent, contrary to recent data provided by FTX.
The objective is to reimburse the injured clients
According to the new CEO of FTX, the decisive element in this decision will be the reimbursement of the exchange’s damaged customers. Thus, the question will be which will generate more financial value between a re-launch of FTX or the sale of the group and its subsidiaries.
“Everything is on the table. If there is a way forward on this, then we will not only think about it, we will do it. […] We’re working with stakeholders who have identified what they see as a viable business.””Everything is on the table. If there is a way forward on this, then we will not only think about it, we will do it. […] We’re working with stakeholders who have identified what they see as a viable business.”
The trick, however, will be to get FTX’s books in order. According to Ray, who says he’s never seen this in his career, Sam Bankman-Fried and his staff sometimes failed to keep track of multi-million dollar transactions, which the CEO also calls “wild spending.
The current FTX teams, which have been thoroughly overhauled, are currently combing through more than 30 terabytes of FTX data in the hope of getting their hands on new assets. They have reportedly managed to get their hands on several of the exchange’s wallets in the last week alone.
The market reacted strongly to the announcement, as the FTT, the utility token of the bankrupt exchange, was able to make an intraday rally of around +40%.
At the time of writing, the price of FTT is close to 2.24, reflecting a nearly 140% increase in value over the past 30 days. However, it is still a long way from its high (ATH) of $84 reached in early September 2021.