According to the Wall Street Journal, on January 19, the new CEO of FTX, John J. Ray III, said that he was considering the possibility of “reviving” the FTX exchange after the company completed paying customers and creditors.
Mr. Ray made this statement in his first interview since taking over FTX in November 2022. leadership Although the previous FTX was accused of fraud and using customer money, Mr. Ray said that FTX’s technology platform is still highly appreciated by many people and is fully capable of “reviving”.
FTX’s bankruptcy declaration is considered the most shocking event in the crypto market in 2022. FTX and crypto companies such as Celsius, Voyager Digital, and BlockFi have filled out chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. to try to save the business and sell the platform to other companies.
As a result, Mr. Ray considered rebuilding FTX or liquidating assets and selling the platform to pay off debt. He affirmed that some units are still seeing business potential in FTX.
Mr. John J. Ray III is an experienced businessman in restructuring companies that are in crisis. Previously, he helped energy company Enron Corp pay back billions of dollars to creditors.
In the past two months, Mr. Ray has radically overhauled FTX’s structure and affirmed that the company has no problems in corporate governance. Even so, Mr. Ray’s team is still combing through more than 30 TB of FTX data for information on where customer assets are kept, as FTX does not have a ledger of these activities, nor are there records. about the transactions Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, made during the crypto booming industry. That prompted current employees to call FTX-invested companies to find out how much FTX was buying and what the business of that company was.
However, Sam Bankman-Fried criticized the way Mr. Ray took over the company and disagreed with FTX’s filing for bankruptcy protection.
In addition, there are criticisms that Mr. Ray and his associates are being paid thousands of dollars an hour by deducting money from FTX’s funds when this money should be used to repay customers.
Responding to that criticism, the new FTX CEO said he had to hire top experts to handle and investigate FTX’s complex criminal activity. “Criminal activity is expensive, it costs a lot of people. One of those damages is that people like me have to step in and clean up,” he said.