Bitcoin Forum

A recent update came out, and it’s great news for the Bitcoin community. Usually, when an exchange faces issues, we assume our funds are gone for good. But just recently, it turns out that some of the exchange's funds were recovered and are being used to pay back users.

In earlier reports, it was estimated that around $8-10 billion in customer funds were either misused or lost. So, the recovery of $16 billion is more than enough to cover those losses and pay back affected users. This is definitely a positive development for the FTX case.

Here's the news.

The complain is FTX's users/ victims will not receive their cryptocurrencies back, but they will receive fiat currency (or stable coin?) according to their portfolios' values at time of FTX collapse or bankruptcy. This means they will get money equivalently to portfolio values in a worst time of bear market two years ago, and it is big loss if comparing prices of cryptocurrencies in a bear market (nearly bottom range) and now in a bull market.

It is still good news for FTX victims as receiving more money is better than less.

The news about FTX case is a good chance to share this topic to warn people about risk of storing money on centralized exchanges.
Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)

That's the sad news but that's how the government are gonna process things as  those coins were already used.

To give an idea on the average price in 2022.

https://www.statmuse.com/money/ask/bitcoin-price-day-by-day-november-2022

So that's pretty low compared to the current price....

And as to the usd value refund., they'll get +18% of the value of their coins that time...

---

Some might complain about the price difference, but this is definitely better than not recovering their money at all.

Yes, good news, I heard this news on some channels since yesterday and it is definitely good news for everyone that this case that has been going on for years and is considered one of the worst crypto incidents is over.

Although many affected users are not satisfied with the distribution method decided by the court as they will receive fiat instead of their crypto assets, the worst thing for them is that the price will be calculated at the time of the incident as the price of Bitcoin was very low.

Of course, this is not fair to many of them, but it is better than nothing, especially since if the compensation is calculated at the value of Bitcoin today at $63K, I expect that the amount of $16 billion will not be enough to compensate everyone.

This exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy, and it’s standard for companies declaring bankruptcy to have their assets valued in fiat, likely for accounting purposes, we can read that if we doa little research. And wait... have we forgotten that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are not considered legal tender in the US. The $16 billion recovered by the team is a mix of different assets, including cryptocurrency (both Bitcoin and altcoins), cash, equity, investments, and real estate or physical assets-- all of which have their own valuations.

I totally agree.
It's great that people will get at least something out of this whole charade that was FTX rug, however, many will be disappointed, and many - just mad in general.
As it was said, in 2022, the BTC was around $17k  ::)

It is good that the people will get something back after losing everything.

The bigger lesson here is that one should not use the exchange wallets to store coins. But people outside the forum who constitute majority of the users on exchanges dont pay heed to this.

---

A certain scam modus starts operating when these refunds start, someone random cold call/PM with a offer to send them the money while "they" will personally arrange for a refund. Dont trust such people, follow whatever will be official.

I cant wait when the situation with FTX moves from words into actions. Almost every week we hear different news how something new was found, decision was taken, new guilty people found and trial would start and etc. But as far as I know, nobody received anything back yet. For these all this looks like another noise. Just words.

I think it's a fair valuation, similar to how Mt. Gox's bankruptcy was handled. If Bitcoin had reached $100k in 2022 and they used the current valuation $62k as the basis, would they still call it unfair?

At least with the approval of the Delaware bankruptcy judge, the process of disbursing the funds will start. John Ray and his team will soon begin the process of paying investors.

Reports show that 98% of customers will get 119% of what they lost. It is possible that if they pay everyone using digital assets the money might not be enough to pay everyone. It is good news for everyone to at least get back the dollar equivalent. People should be pleased that they are getting it because most people have lost funds in bankrupt centralized exchanges.

I think probably yes, however, it's how it will be handled and it won't be changed because of that "unfairness".
 ::)

 Well, half is better than none and although they can't get back their cryptocurrencies, at least they can get funds that can enable them purchase more cryptos if they so please. At least they've learned their lesson on how not to keep their coins on centralized exchanges. If care's not taken, some of the affected users may not be bothered that they don't get their cryptocurrencies back but are being settled in fiat as long as they've been settled.

This is a medicine after death for me because no matter the positive development, although it is a welcomed development, and also because it will be exciting for people who lost money to receive it back, It still will not magically take away the distrust that some people have developed for exchanges and, by extension, cryptocurrency, or make some people who swore to themselves never to be involved with anything cryptocurrency after the bitter experience with FTX want to change their minds. The shame that FTX brought to the cryptocurrency space will always be pointed out or used as an example by critics.

Also good news for the crypto market as that means that they will not be able to sell their coins and lower the price but instead, perhaps buy coins with their refunded fiat and drive the price up higher. Paying back in fiat might be a slap in the face to the hodlers who were hoping to make a profit after all this time but it is better than nothing, I guess.

Good thing I do not trust exchanges and only hold my coins on my own wallets instead of some third party custodial wallets (like on crypto exchanges).

I believe most of these affected users will be glad to have their money back, regardless of the worth, this is way more better than them not receiving anything at all. This news is not only positive for the affected users but also for the crypto community, this is sending warning message to those other centralized exchanges out there that could go bankruptcy that they can be traced and have money paid back to clients.

Considering the difference between bitcoin price in November 2022 and now (~17k in November vs ~62k now), the loss is much bigger than 50% (~72%) and that's only if they get the money ASAP. People probably won't get their money back in months, and maybe even a year and by then bitcoin might be much higher than it is now.

So yeah, its good that they will still get something back, but I think that many will be pissed off.

This is a great news and the fact that whole amount will be paid in dollars and not crypto makes it more bullish news as people will have money to buy their favorite assets and I hope, it's not FTX anymore (joking).  $16 Billion dollars if all invested in BTC at the current price is 258,064 Bitcoins. Enough to carry on the momentum of this bull run despite having so many bearish news (related to war) recently.

It is normal, many will not be satisfied at all, but will express resentment. By the time they get the money back, they will lose about 70%. Because in 2022 a person's 1 Bitcoin was worth $17k, which is $62k today. But he will get back the $17k. That means no profit will come from his money in 2 years.

Many affected users will be happy, who had invested money in various Shitcoins whose current value is much lower than at that time. They will surely feel themselves benefited. Many affected investors will be disappointed, but I think getting something is better than nothing. Maybe there was a big lesson hidden in our losses that made you gain many times the money you lost.

The collapse of FTX was quite a dark tragedy in the crypto world, perhaps at that time many people experienced huge losses as a result of this incident. Some people even felt they had given up on getting into the world of crypto after experiencing losses due to this incident. However, with the news that user funds used by FTX or those who experienced losses at that time will be returned, of course this news will be very encouraging. Because how could it not be, after all the users who experienced losses at that time thought their funds would not be returned, and now they will be returned, of course they will be very happy. So hopefully this can really happen and isn't just a lie. Because if FTX really returns money from its users, this will have a very positive impact on the crypto world. Because many people will think that crypto exchanges are truly responsible for all the mistakes or fraud they commit. Apart from that, it is reported that FTX will only compensate users who have assets of less than $50K. I don't know if this news is true or not, but according to all of you, is this fair enough or not? In my personal opinion, this is still better than not compensating for losses at all. But if for example this is true, hopefully FTX will make a few changes to this. Because after all, every FTX user who suffers a loss,  will definitely want their money back.

It's great to see the possibility of getting user funds back after the FTX collapse, especially for those who thought they had lost everything. This development could really help restore some faith in the crypto space. However, the $50K limit on compensation raises some concerns. While this is better than nothing, many users who have experienced significant damage will still feel shortchanged. It would be ideal for FTX to consider a more equitable approach to compensation reflecting the extent of damages to users. Transparency is key in this process, and hopefully, they will coordinate to ensure fairness for all affected users. Overall, this is a positive step.

$16,000,000,000 which a lot will go back into crypto, I am sure. This is great news, for those affected by FTX running a joke shop but also holders of coins who didn’t even have a balance there. As money received flows back into crypto, it will pump our bags so this is great news.

There is nothing to celebrate about this news. Initially, the new CEO which is now the representative of FTX exchange had plans to distribute customers fund back to them but the plan was to distribute the money in the value and not the quantity of the coin and didn't sit well with the users, they want their coins back and not amount and that's how they went to the court and they won which is why this news broke to the internet.

However, there is a problem. The team is having $16b worth of crypto and that is because the market has rise back and there are gains on those coins. If they are to distribute coins that were taken from customers before the exchange was halt, I'm not sure there is going to be coins to go round and if there is, there wouldn't be much left for the team to launch the exchange, that's going to the end of ftx story.

Exchanges collapsing, going bankrupt or getting hacked is nothing new in the crypto industry, and anyone who lost fate because sbf ran ftx to the ground and into bankruptcy is probably new to the industry. However, nothing much changes now that ftx is repaying their creditors, it is good for the creditors but it does not mean people should trust centralized exchanges or custodial services with their funds, the only safe place to store your funds is in your self custodial wallet.

No matter what, don't store your coins in third party platforms. As much as possible, keep your coins in your own wallet where you have full control of. Once you finished trading, send it to your own wallet. Otherwise, you are subjecting yourself to possible losses of funds.

It may restore some faith, but I won't trust crypto-exchanges with my funds even if the exchange is included in the top list and reputable ones. Anything can go wrong from hacking to inside job. Always secure your funds by storing it in your own wallet where you have full control of.

How sure are we that the investors will send the money back to crypto. Some have already counted it as lost money, recieving it again might mean that they'll use it do something out of cryptocurrency. It is a few who are overly comfortable that will want to reinvest the money. However, the re-invested money might not affect the market because the whole money will not be re-invested into a particular coin, rather different places.

Are bitcoiners going to be recompensed with bitcoin?

It is a must that they have to fix the trouble that the past owners did to their customers fund. I'm happy to see that the current management of FTX is fixing things that have crumpled their reputation. But to be honest, even if they are going to refund all of the customers money, it's very unlikely that most of their customers are coming back. Everyone is going to make sure that they get their money but at the same time, they're not going to be back at this exchange to avoid any further and future troubles.

I wonder if this gonna have that great of an effect, I'm sure not all the money will go to BTC, probably half of the victim just gonna cash out and the remaining will reinvest their money, but considering even microstrategy and blackrock buying doesn't even budge the market,  I guess it will not be that significant, moreover, the reinvestment that the victim did won't be done in one go, some of them contemplate, and the other maybe optimistic.

but at least it's great that the user got their deserved reimbursement, we'll need to remember that the FTX collapse was so bad the market crashed so hard.

hoping it could turn around sentiment and adding buying pressure with the money going back to the victims.

Yes, in my opinion, this is good. If I were the victims, I would be very happy to get this amount back after more than two years, since they cannot do anything if the money is lost.

To be fair, if the opposite had happened and the price of Bitcoin had fallen, would the victims have demanded the return of their crypto assets or the equivalent value in dollars at that time? The answer is clear, of course.

Sometimes we can't get everything we expect, rather than not getting it at all then getting it in fiat is much better even though there are losses, trying to cover the losses by buying crypto when you have received the money and the market is bullish will be quite risky so be patient or just buy Bitcoin will be better because altcoins may make the money from FTX refunds decrease or even run out because they bought at a high price and the price fell deep.
FTX users may not be so happy with the form of the refund but this is still good news for their users who may be struggling because their money is stuck on the exchange.

Can someone please make it clear - how much funds were lost in FTX and how much were returned/found/obtained? It is said that it is enough to refund users. Investors I think were getting something back already, as liquidators were selling some altcoins. Since a lot of lost funds have been found and are return to return, isnt it right to reconsider SBF sentence?

As I recall, when they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, they owed customers $11-12 billion. Currently, they have over $16 billion in hand and that is why they claim that over 98% of their customers get back 119% of their lost money. But one important thing is when they declared bankruptcy, Bitcoin price was below $20k and now Bitcoin is over $60k and their customers will receive USD, not Bitcoin or crypto.

The asset recovery was a joint effort of the FTX team in coordination with law enforcement agencies, SBF did not make any contribution to assist the company in recovering the assets. I remember he was convicted of three crimes, including stealing client funds, so I see no reason to be lenient even if FTX recovers the debt and refunds the clients.

That's wonderful news! I love it when money is not only recovered from financial crimes but also returned to the victims. It's great that so much money was somehow recovered, and that one way or another, people will be compensated. I don't think it's important in which currency people get their funds back, as long as it's representative of the amount they lost at that time. After all, people can always make a choice to reinvest in Bitcoin if they feel like it. And sure, there's also potential profit lost due to price differences, but we don't know how long those people would have held their coins or anything like that, so a missed opportunity isn't something that should be compensated.

I’m not sure if the $16 billion is enough to cover all the losses, but it's definitely a step in the right direction, It’s rare to recover anything after a disaster like FTX, Hopefully, this will help improve the industry’s image a little
it’s worth keeping an eye on this case, though.From experience, there are always more surprises in these situations.  :) (https://projektowanie.art/pracownia-autorska/)

It's less than 16 billion that may re-enter. And not 16 billion will re-enter the crypto market. Some may cash out instead of putting it back into crypto.

But, I wonder if they will refund us more than the defined claim amounts. They sold our tokens at a higher rate. The last time, I heard a rumor about  how they'd pay us around 118% (+interest).

I must admit this is good news for the crypto market. This is because  there will be a huge sum of money in inflows, and it will have a positive impact on the price of crypto. But let's not be overhyped with this.

First I wanted to say that I am surprised, that if it is said that FTX "lost" $11-12 billions, but managed to find $16 billions, as it will state that they have serious bookkeeping problems. But when you have said such amount appeared due to Bitcoin price change, and users would receive USD (USDT most probably) instead of cryptocurrency they were having, then the situation seems to be more awful. As it turns that customers have paid $1 to receive $0.33. Receiving 1/3 is still better than nothing, but such solutions isnt right anyway.

That $12 billion on record was the amount of cryptocurrency held by users, and it was double-checked by the agency leading the investigation. Basically, that was the value in USD at the time. Meanwhile, the $16 billion recovered was a mix of currency, properties, and investments. So, they probably sold some properties and cashed out some investments to reach that figure.


That $12 billion was the value during the bankruptcy, and the judge ruled that it should be paid in fiat, specifically in USD, not USDT or any crypto.

So, it’s going to be settled in actual legal tender cash.

Obviously, it's not great because we're on the losing side, but what if the price back then was higher than what it is now?

Anyways, it's still good news that such amounts was used to refund some of the victims but some of is the money enough to compensate their emotional troubles that the exchange must have caused them due to it's crash? Some persons had some investment in tokens and coins that they believed would have earned them a fair profit and I will agree that some victims would have made much more profit from their holdings if those coins was right in their custody but it was not, the exchange disappointed them. Although, it's good that FTX is still kind to make sure they refund because some other exchange collapsed and didn't refund.

I personally lost a huge amount in FTX Exchange, and with this news, I am happy but I still do not trust it. I even already did the steps about these refunds but I am still not hoping those refunds will be successful, what's a good thing is I can see progress.
And considering it's not only me who is affected by this.
I just want to say some of their steps about the refund are extremely difficult, so for other people who already filed, keep monitoring your status and beware of a lot of fake emails being sent to you about the refunds, which I believe a lot of email addresses was leaked.

Is there any particular reason why you don't trust this, what makes you think you are not going to receive your funds back, even when they managed to recover some of the exchange's funds and now they'll use that to pay back the creditors. The only question i think should be asked is when exactly the repayment will start, the whole case was settled quickly, around two years, i just hope it won't be like mt.Gox, when we had many talks of repayments, but it didn't happen, up until this year.

This is a pretty massive amount of money for crypto users to be getting back. I hope that they have learned their lesson and don’t pile it into altcoins. If even 25% of that money ends up going into Bitcoin, I suspect it would be pretty huge for the market and the price. Swallowing up all the BTC being dumped by the US government.

Wow this is so great, much quicker turn around than Mt. Gox funds only took them 2 years vs 10! It’s pretty great that they have been able to make it right. Does anyone still use the platform?

The rule to the refund process is:

Creditors first
Other users afterwards.

I don't know if their retail users will be rewarded in full or they'd take some sort of haircut and reduce percentage down. What's good about the latest developments on FTX saga is that users will get something back as opposed to 2022 when we thought it was done and over for any and all users that has money on it at the time of their bankruptcy filings.

Sorry about your loss. Just keep your fingers crossed and hopefully you will be made whole.

This really depend on what the exchange did before it went down. Kucoin had 200m stolen from their exchange and prior to when the fund was not retrieve, they promised to pay back the affect users 100% but luckily the funds was trace and were retrieve and the exchange made payment back to affected users before the outflow but ftx clearly used users funds to gamble which is clearly their fault. They must pay back that's why he went to the prison.


I hope this doesn't affect the price of cryptos, no way they are going to pay $16b to users without affecting the market. I don't think some alts market can take the pressure selling, this is going to affect all the coins from 1 down to other shitcoins. What about the coins that are not having liquidity and are not having but orders? What about the FTX token that crash from $18 down to $1, without the exchange running, no way this is going to be possible.

As announced they will pay creditors in USD, not bitcoin or any altcoin, shitcoin. So there have been some theories that FTX's debt repayment will not be negative, but on the contrary, it could bring positive things to the market if the victims continue to use that money to invest in the market again.

These assumptions are not without basis, if you pay attention, you will see a huge difference that every time there is news about Mt.gox compensation, the market will become negative and panic. But on the contrary, news related to FTX had almost no negative impact on the market and even had a positive impact on the FTT token. We don't need to worry too much about FTX paying $16 billion causing negative impacts on the market and should congratulate the victims on getting their money back soon.

This is a different situation. KuCoin is still operational, while FTX has already declared bankruptcy.

It’s no longer in the hands of the former CEO or the exchange's officers. Once bankruptcy was declared, the government stepped in to take over, evaluate the remaining assets, and work on paying back users and creditors. The good news is they managed to recover $16 billion for payouts.


For the record, the amount to be paid is $12 billion, and the payment will be in fiat (USD). Since they’ve already announced the refund, we can assume that they’ve sold off the Bitcoins and altcoins, along with company properties and investments, to liquidate enough funds to cover the debts.

Based on the article that you shared OP, the starting date on when they will be paying these investors aren't disclosed yet, so we don't know when the sold off happen, or did it happen already. Whatever the case is, this is a good thing for those who lost their money storing their funds in this exchange. Who would've thought that a huge exchange like FTX will go bankrupt? I mean yes, we expect that all exchange can just experience this, but most of the time, it's the small exchanges. This time, it's FTX. This just shows that any exchange, small or big can go bankrupt anytime.

Like what others said, don't store your assets on an exchange unless you're planning to sell it. If you want to maximize the "EARN" features of different exchange, at least put an amount that you're ready just in case things go south. As for this having an effect towards crypto, since they've said that it would be paid in fiat, expect a sell-off in the future (assuming that they didn't still sell it now since they didn't disclose it) hence, pushing the prices of Bitcoin and altcoins down.

As for the exchange though, I wonder how they will recover from this, or will they recover from this.

This may be good news all in all, but it's bittersweet especially to those who have huge amounts lost. Yeah, it's better to get back a small refund than nothing at all, but one can only say it with a sigh. The price has more than tripled since then.

Also, the actual refund is most likely not happening soon. What was approved was the bankruptcy plan. It wasn't yet the green light to release the funds to its former users. It will probably take more time. By the time of the refund the price could have already risen more than 500%.

This is a shame but quite expected since FTX would want to spend as little as they can and this is also to maintain consistency. They need to pick the cloest time frame to when the funds were lost. This is disappointing but can still be considered a win by those who fell victim to FTX. This is a lot better than not getting anything at all.

May this serve as a reminder of the possible consequences of using an exchange to store our funds in. Do not put all your funds in one platform and make sure to diversify.

This news is a little bit old. I knew that FTX has lots of funds to be sent back to the investors several months ago.
Was FTX insolvent after all? How much did the FTX investors actually lose and will these 16 billion USD cover all their losses?
Will Sam Bankman-Fried get less time in prison? I'm not familiar in detail with the whole FTX drama and it's been 2 years since FTX got bankrupt. Maybe the news about this FTX refund is the main reason why the Bitcoin price went up from 60K to 63K in the past 24-48 hours.

Yeah, keeping your funds in one place, especially something like any CEX - may shoot up back badly.
I agree that people, many of them in fact would be angry that they won't get the amount of money they would currently have, however, they will have at least some kind of compensation, which is better than leaving them all without anything at all.
I hope this whole situation will be a lesson for people who store most of their assets in one place.

Yes indeed, action speaks louder than words, this is not the first time that we're hearing about how FTX will start disbursing payments to their customers. I'm hoping that it'll be for real this time and the victims that their bankruptcy affected will start to get their money back. I understand that people who are hoping to recover their funds might not be happy because they won't get the complete current value of their coins but it's better than receiving nothing, afterall up until this moment I don't think that any of them has received anything yet. This goes to show that the lesson that is taught in this forum is real, that we shouldn't leave our coins in exchanges because if it's not your keys it's not your coins.

Yeah, not only on this forum but on others and overall too - though it's unfortunate that this lesson was given in such a form, alas, it will be remembered in the thoughts of others better, so that this situation wouldn't happen to them (or there would be less chances of it happening).

I don't think that the victims who get their money back will invest it again in crypto market. Most of them might be dishearten due to FTX's collapse and that's why they might have formed negative beliefs about crypto market in general. The ones who have formed those negative beliefs will never ever think about investing their money in crypto market again.

It all depends on them because if they are honest they will not blame crypto and will admit it is their fault. Because I believe that as a crypto investor, everyone is very familiar with the saying “not your keys, not your coins”. If they adhere to this, never trust any third party and they will never fall into such a heartbreaking situation . Only selfish people blame crypto when it's their fault.

As I see it, many people were victims of Mt.gox and it's been 10 years but they are still bitcoin investors, they haven't left the market or blamed the market as you think . Not everyone is selfish, not everyone has negative thoughts or gives up early just because of a few failures.