The Bahamas Securities Commission has reportedly frozen FTX’s assets and appointed a liquidator for the exchange and related parties.
A press release shared by a local media outlet in The Bahamas disclosed that the nation’s regulator froze the assets of FTX and related parties. The release further stated that the Securities Commission had determined that “the prudent course of action” was to put the exchange into provisional liquidation to preserve its assets and stabilize the company.
The regulator appointed Brian Simms, K.C. as the provisional liquidator and suspended all powers of FTX directors.
“The commission is aware of public statements suggesting that clients’ assets were mishandled, mismanaged and/or transferred to Alameda Research. Based on the commission’s information, any such actions would have been contrary to normal governance, without client consent and potentially unlawful,” said the Commission in the release.
Meanwhile, FTX began facilitating withdrawals for users based in the Bahamas in compliance with Bahamian regulator requests, the exchange said in a statement on Thursday
It is unclear what the consequences of this latest ruling will be for FTX users who still have money stuck on the exchange, and the company itself, which is said to be in talks with “a number of players” for a potential bailout.
In a series of tweets on Nov. 10, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said that the market value of FTX’s assets and collateral is higher than client deposits.
“But that’s different from liquidity for delivery–as you can tell from the state of withdrawals. The liquidity varies widely, from very to very little,” he said.
Bankman-Fried said that he plans to make “every penny” of FTX’s existing collateral available to users first, before investors and employees.
Liquidation proceedings, however, could put a dampener on those plans. Investors of Mt. Gox – an exchange that was hacked in 2014 – are still waiting on an official reimbursement from those in charge.
