John J. Ray III, the restructuring chief of bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is investigating the possibility of reviving the bankrupt crypto exchange as a way of returning money to its customers and creditors.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ray, who was also involved in the Enron restructuring, disclosed that he has established a taskforce to investigate the possibility of reviving the exchange, which imploded in a cloud of criminal fraud allegations against founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
Bankman-Fried, who remains under house arrest at his parents’ California home on a US$250mln bail, seems to be in favour of the idea.
“I'm glad Mr Ray is finally paying lip service to turning the exchange back on after months of squashing such efforts!” he Tweeted on Thursday, adding: “I'm still waiting for him to finally admit FTX US is solvent and give customers their money back…”
One of Bankman-Fried's former business partners is also trying to make a comeback.
Former FTX US president Brett Harrison has raised US$5mln for a new crypto-based software start-up called Architect. Coinbase Ventures and Circle Ventures (developer of the US$43bn USDC stablecoin) joined the funding round, as did former White House communications director under Donald Trump Anthony ‘The Mooch’ Scaramucci through his SkyBridge Capital investment fund.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Harrison described Architect as a platform to make centralised and decentralised crypto markets more accessible to institutional investors.
Harrison plans to launch Architect this year with hopes of incorporating it into Coinbase’s and Circle’s platforms.
Harrison has sought to distance himself from his former boss Following the FTX collapse, describing his time at FTX.US as fraught with tensions and disagreements.
“I saw in that early conflict (Bankman-Fried’s) total insecurity and intransigence when his decisions were questioned, his spitefulness, and the volatility of his temperament. I realised he wasn’t who I remembered,” Harrison wrote in an exhaustive 49-part Twitter thread.
35/49 I never could have guessed that underlying these kinds of issues — which I’d seen at other more mature firms in my career and believed not to be fatal to business success — was multi-billion-dollar fraud.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Bankman-Fried is facing life behind bars if found guilty of misappropriating an estimated US$8bn in FTX users’ funds.