FTX Trading Ltd.: the group, Alameda, customer assets and the collapse

analysisSets out, entity by entity, which FTX company did what: FTX Trading Ltd. and its Bahamian, Swiss, Cypriot and Japanese subsidiaries, the holding company Paper Bird Inc., the Alameda companies and West Realm Shires. It follows customer money from the exchange's terms of service to Alameda's accounts and loans, the debtors' estimates of the shortfall and the transfers on and after the petition date, then the Chapter 11 case, the Bahamian liquidation of FTX Digital Markets, the Swiss and Cypriot proceedings, the civil and regulatory actions and the criminal cases. Each account keeps the parties' responses, consents without admission, pleas and outcomes beside it. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33}

analysisFTX Trading Ltd. is organized in Antigua and Barbuda and is the parent of what the Chapter 11 debtors call the Dotcom Silo. FTX.com, a digital asset exchange that was not open to U.S. users, was the trade name of its business; according to John J. Ray III, the debtors' chief executive, it was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh and began operating in May 2019. It was incorporated as an international business company under Antigua's International Business Corporations Act, with Bankman-Fried, Mr. Law and Ms. Chan as its first directors. GLEIF records it as FTX Trading Limited, number 17180 in the Antigua register, with LEI 894500686R5LFMX57208 (lapsed), and its Form D filed with the SEC in November 2021 under Central Index Key 0001876386 gives 2019 as its year of incorporation. GLEIF gives the entity's creation timestamp as 1 April 2019, 22:00 UTC, while a commercial screening dataset built partly on GLEIF data gives 2 April 2019 as the incorporation date. ^{1 2 3 4}

analysisIts petition gives its principal place of business as Mandolin Place, Friars Hill Road, St. John's, Antigua; its statement of financial affairs lists earlier addresses at Lower Factory Road and Friar's Hill Road in St. John's (from March 2019), 2000 Center Street, Berkeley, California (from August 2019) and Seoul (dates unknown). FTX Digital Markets' liquidators say the international platform was first run by FTX Trading Ltd. from Hong Kong; the debtors say the headquarters moved to the Bahamas in September 2021, and their 2023 complaint gives Nassau as FTX Trading's principal place of business. By November 2022 FTX.com had more than seven million registered users, and FTX Trading's petition estimated, on a consolidated basis as of 31 December 2021, more than 100,000 creditors and assets and liabilities each between $10 billion and $50 billion. ^{5 6 7 8 9}

analysisThe debtors describe the group as four silos, WRS, Alameda, Ventures and Dotcom, all controlled by Bankman-Fried with minority stakes held by Wang and Singh, and without an ultimate parent company. About 75% of FTX Trading was held through Bankman-Fried's Paper Bird Inc. and about 25% by outside investors, some 600 of them according to Ray; the SEC's complaint against Ellison and Wang states that FTX Trading raised at least $1.8 billion from equity investors. The Dotcom Silo's debtors were organized around the world under FTX Trading, which the ownership statement lists as sole owner of FTX Japan Holdings K.K. and FTX Europe AG among others, and FTX Digital Markets' liquidators state that FTX Trading is also the sole shareholder of FTX Digital Markets in the Bahamas. Alameda Research LLC was a sister company, not a subsidiary, owned 90% by Bankman-Fried and 10% by Wang. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8}

analysisThe CFTC's consent order, entered with FTX Trading's and Alameda's consent, finds that the two companies shared staff, offices, systems and accounts; that Alameda's FTX account had an "Allow Negative" flag and a $65 billion borrowing limit; that FTX customers' fiat was paid into Alameda-controlled accounts; and that Alameda used customer assets for its own trading and to meet its external debts; by about mid-2022 FTX's ledgers showed Alameda's dollar liability to FTX at about $8 billion, which FTX executives, at Bankman-Fried's direction, concealed by moving it into a customer account. The court found that the two companies made material misrepresentations to customers, presenting their assets as held in custody and segregated. The order was entered without a trial on the merits: the companies admitted its findings for the purpose of exceptions to discharge in bankruptcy and agreed that they would be taken as true in proceedings involving the CFTC, keeping the right to take other positions in proceedings to which the CFTC is not a party. ^{9 10}

analysisOn the same limited admission, the consent order finds that by late on 7 November 2022 FTX could not meet withdrawals, which Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison and others acknowledged internally was because customer funds had been misappropriated. On or about that day Bankman-Fried had posted that "FTX is fine. Assets are fine" and that FTX could cover all client holdings, a statement the SEC's complaint calls false and misleading and which he later deleted. The debtors estimated in June 2023 that about $8.7 billion of customer assets had been misappropriated from FTX.com by the petition date; these are their estimates, made after they took control, and they changed as the analysis progressed. The CFTC's order requires FTX Trading and Alameda to pay $8.7 billion in restitution, to be satisfied through distributions under the Chapter 11 plan. On 10 November 2022 the Securities Commission of the Bahamas froze the assets of FTX Digital Markets, and Bankman-Fried signed an authority to appoint John J. Ray III as chief executive and Stephen Neal as chairman, a post the record does not show Neal took up; early on 11 November Bankman-Fried agreed to resign. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7}

analysisFTX Trading Ltd. and its affiliates filed for Chapter 11 in Delaware on 11 November 2022, and West Realm Shires Inc. on 14 November. In the case the debtors reached a global settlement with FTX Digital Markets' liquidators to pool assets and coordinate distributions, and a customer settlement giving FTX.com customers a shortfall claim estimated at about $8.9 billion. The plan was confirmed in October 2024, projecting $14.7 billion to $16.5 billion of distributable value and about 119% of allowed claims for most creditors; these are the debtors' projections at confirmation. It took effect on 3 January 2025, when the FTX Recovery Trust was set up, and in June 2025 the trust and the separate subsidiaries moved for a final decree closing the cases, with FTX Trading Ltd.'s lead case to remain open pending a further order; the proposed decree in the record does not show when it was entered. The CFTC's consent order also imposes $4 billion in disgorgement, and under a related settlement the CFTC subordinated its monetary claims to those of victims; FTX Trading and Alameda, by then under the debtors' management, consented to the order without a trial on the merits and on the limited admission described above. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13}

analysisBankman-Fried pleaded not guilty and contested the charges at trial, but was convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced on 28 March 2024 to 25 years in prison. According to docket entries from a public mirror of the court's docket, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment and issued its mandate on 4 August 2026, and his motion for a new trial was denied. Ellison, Wang and Singh pleaded guilty; in December 2025 the SEC filed proposed final judgments to which they consented without denying its allegations, with injunctions and officer-and-director bars, subject to court approval, and the record does not show when they were entered. In May 2026 Antigua's financial regulator listed FTX Trading Ltd. among companies it intended to strike from the register unless outstanding requirements were met by 5 August 2026; later gazettes retained in the record do not mention it, so its register status after that date is unresolved. ^{14 15 16 17 18 3 19 20 21 22 23 24}