FTX Lawyers Tell Court "the Dumpster Fire is Out"

FTX’s Bankruptcy Lawyers: ‘The Dumpster Fire Is Out’

Five months after the spectacular implosion of FTX, the Bahamas-based crypto exchange’s new legal team has a message for both the U.S. bankruptcy court and creditors alike: “The situation has been stabilized and the dumpster fire is out.”

Made by FTX’s lead bankruptcy attorney Andy Dietderich, a partner at New York law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, the remarks came at a hearing on Wednesday before U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge John D. Dorsey of the District of Delaware.

Dietderich told the court that the team of professionals who took over FTX after former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was forced to step down was working hard to build balance sheets from scratch and track down assets for customer recovery. So far, according to a presentation made by Dietderich, the company has recovered a whopping $7.3 billion in mostly liquid, distributable assets, up nearly $2 billion from the figure lawyers gave at a hearing in January.

The U.S. Cracked a $3.4 Billion Crypto Heist—and Bitcoin’s Anonymity

Mr. Zhong made his big mistake on Dec. 16, 2020, according to court records and an analysis of his bitcoin transactions by Elliptic. He combined crypto funds the IRS had linked to the Silk Road thefts with legitimate funds he kept in a cryptocurrency exchange.

With Mr. Zhong’s Silk Road link in hand, authorities went to the bitcoin exchange that handled the transaction. The exchange gave IRS agents an IP address, 45.20.67.1, and Mr. Zhong’s internet service provider confirmed that he had been using that address since 2016. A month later, federal agents searched Mr. Zhong’s house and found the digital storage devices that helped clinch the investigation.

The government seized more than 50,000 bitcoins from Mr. Zhong, which at the time were worth $3.36 billion. A DOJ spokesman declined to comment on the case.

2022 Accounting-related Securities Class Action Settlements Rise

The total value of accounting case settlements grew by more than 67% in 2022 to $1.4 billion, up from $817 million the previous year. Key contributors to the significant jump in total settlement value were an increase in the average settlement amount to $31.7 million in 2022 from $24.7 million in 2021, coupled with a 30% year-over-year increase in the number of settled cases to 43 from 33 the prior year.

The median value of settled accounting cases also nearly doubled from the previous year to $15.5 million. The 91% year-over-year increase—the biggest jump since 2012—indicates that accounting settlements were a key driver of the 46% increase in the median value of all securities class action settlements, as discussed in Securities Class Action Settlements—2022 Review and Analysis.

FTXI wrote on Monday that Ray “was hired as the CEO of FTX to put it into bankruptcy, to steer it through bankruptcy, and to maximize recovery for FTX’s customers and other creditors, and he has spent a lot of his time publishing gleeful reports about how bad everything at FTX is and how incompetent and criminal its former managers, led by former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, were.” And I suggested that there might be some tension between publishing all those reports about FTX’s badness, and also trying to reopen it for business as though nothing bad had happened.

But, look, fair enough, if I ran S&C’s FTX team, I would staff an army of lawyers on Project Everything Is Fine and We’re Rebooting FTX As the World’s Leading Crypto Exchange, and I would staff an entirely separate army of lawyers on Project Dig Up Every Possible Item of Dirt About FTX to Prove It’s the Worst Company Ever, and I’d let them both work in parallel and see what pans out. And both of those teams would be separate from the core team on Project Just Find Out Where All the Assets Are and Liquidate Them to Pay Creditors. It’s fine! Plenty of lawyers, plenty of money, this is what you do.

JPMorgan orders managing directors back to office five days a week: ‘Lead by example’

JPMorgan Chase has ordered its managing directors “to lead by example” by returning to their desks five days a week – and warned of consequences for lower-level employees that fall short of the firm’s less stringent attendance requirements, according to a recent memo obtained by The Post.

The Wall Street titan’s operating committee detailed its new requirement while stressing the “importance of being in the office” in a message to staffers last Friday.

“Our leaders play a critical role in reinforcing our culture and running our businesses,” the memo said. “They have to be visible on the floor, they must meet with clients, they need to teach and advise, and they should always be accessible for immediate feedback and impromptu meetings.

“We need them to lead by example, which is why we’re asking all managing directors to be in the office five days a week,” the memo added.

Twitter to let users access stocks, crypto via eToro in finance push

Twitter will let its users access stocks, cryptocurrencies and other financial assets through a partnership with eToro, a social trading company.

Starting Thursday, a new feature will be rolled out on the Twitter app. It will allow users to view market charts on an expanded range of financial instruments and buy and sell stocks and other assets from eToro, the company told CNBC exclusively.