FTX Reportedly Purchased $121M Worth of Properties in the Bahamas
- A unit of the exchange, FTX Property Holdings, bought 15 properties worth above $100 million in 2021 and 2022, which included seven luxury condos.
- Sam Bankman-Fried, his parents, and top executives of now bankrupt FTX also made several purchases, including a $16.4 million “vacation home”.
Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, speaking at the Binance Blockchain Week, Singapore, 19 January, 2019. Binance
Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, his parents, and a number of executives from the company has purchased at least 19 properties in the Bahamas in the last two years, Reuters reported on 22 November.
The publication cited official property records, which indicated that all these properties had a combined cost of more than $121 million, with the most expensive being a $30 million penthouse at a resort called Albany. The majority of these purchases were made in 2021 and 2022 by FTX Property Holdings, including seven luxury condos that were designated as “residence for key personnel”, though Reuters was unable to determine who lived in them.
Other high-end purchases included three condominiums — costing between $950,000 and $2 million — that were bought by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder Gary Wang, and head of engineering Nishad Singh. SBF’s parents — Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried — were also listed as signatories of a $16.4 million property that documents from 15 June show was used as a “vacation home”. A spokesperson for the parents told Reuters that they have been trying to return the property to FTX before it filed for bankruptcy. He said:
“Since before the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have been seeking to return the deed to the company and are awaiting further instructions.”
The exchange, and over 100 companies connected to the FTX Group, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 11 November after leaked documents caused a sudden liquidity crisis. Bankruptcy court documents later revealed that the company could have more than 1 million creditors, the top 50 of which had a combined claim of around $3 billion. On Monday, the U.S. Senate committee scheduled an FTX hearing for 1 December, with the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) participating as a witness.
- The New York Jurors took 4 fours of deliberating before pronouncing the former FTX CEO guilty of all seven charges of fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
- Bankman-Fried will now have to appear in court on 28 March, 2024, where he will face a potential maximum sentence of 115 years in prison.
Former CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried leaves the Federal Court in New York after pleading not guilty, 3 January, 2022.
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- A little over $13 million in altcoins were sent to crypto exchanges Binance and Coinbase in the past 24 hours, which is in accordance with a September court order.
- The court ordered a phased liquidation process, which allows the bankruptcy estate to sell $3.4 billion worth of digital assets over a certain period of time.
- Joseph Pimbley, a member of litigation consulting firm PF2 Securities, will try to rebuff testimonies from Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Adam Yedidia.
- During his testimony Pimbley will try to establish a timeline for the FTX-Alameda line of credit, and convince the jury it fluctuated between $1 billion and $3 billion between 2021 and 2022.