A lawyer for FTX said the defunct cryptocurrency exchange has abandoned plans to restart, choosing instead to liquidate all assets and return funds to customers. The Guardian reports: The exchange, founded by Sam Bankman Freed, had been negotiating with potential bidders and investors for months, but no one was willing to commit enough money to rebuild, the company said. Andy Dietderich, an attorney for FTX, said this at a Delaware bankruptcy court hearing. The failure of the negotiations was due to the fact that FTX was never what it seemed and that Mr. Bankman Fried never built the underlying technology and management necessary to run the company as a viable business. Dietderich said that this highlighted the
Mr. Bankman Freed was found guilty of fraud charges related to the operation of FTX. He could spend decades in prison. “FTX was an irresponsible fake created by a convicted felon,” Dietderich said. “The cost and risk of creating a viable exchange from what Mr. Bankman Freed left in the trash was simply too high.” The company plans to focus on liquidating assets to repay customers whose deposits were locked up. FTX has recovered more than $7 billion in assets to repay customers and has reached agreements with government regulators. Dietderich said the company should wait until customers are fully repaid before collecting about $9 billion in insurance claims. FTX plans to repay customers, but the exchange will calculate the repayment amount based on crypto prices from November 2022 onwards, when the crypto market was in a prolonged downturn. “Bitcoin price has increased to approximately $43,300 from the November 2022 price of $16,872,” the report notes.