FTX Finally Takes Step on Political donations

In a bid to regain financial stance and recoup some of its political donations, the embattled crypto exchange FTX has finally taken a step, sending messages to politicians and political groups to return donations on or before the end of February. 

Sharing the FTX Debtors’ press release just issued: https://t.co/NdXQlUTM6r

— FTX (@FTX_Official) February 5, 2023

According to a press release on Feb. 5, the latest deadline for the return of political donations made by Sam Bankman-Fried and other FTX executives was made by the new company management. 

It was gathered that the step was in line with the bankruptcy proceedings as well as efforts to raise money in repaying crypto exchange’s creditors. 

It would be recalled that FTX attorney Andy Dietderich stated on Jan 11 that the bankrupt crypto exchange has been able to recover $5 billion in cash and liquid cryptocurrencies thus far. 

However, parts of the statement in the latest release reads:

“FTX Debtors are sending confidential messages to political figures, political action funds, and other recipients of contributions or other payments that were made by or at the direction of the FTX Debtors, Samuel Bankman-Fried or other officers or principals of the FTX Debtors (collectively, the ‘FTX Contributors’). These recipients are requested to return such funds to the FTX Debtors by February 28, 2023.

It was established that former FTX CEO and founder SBF was the second-largest ‘CEO contributor’ to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020, contributing $5.2 million. He also donated significantly durFTX’s midterm elections to Democratic and Republican candidates. 

Meanwhile, data revealed by Unusual Whales presupposes that 196 members of Congress at one point received campaign contributions from FTX’s former executives including Ryan Salame, Nishad Singh, SBF, and others.

Tracing and Recovering Customers’ Funds

The struggle towards tracing and recovering FTX customers’ funds has taken a centrestage. On Jan 4, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) formed the FTX task force to trace and recover customer funds.

Equally, the new FTX boss John Ray has been pursuing a similar goal by hiring financial advisory company AlixPartners in December with the responsibility of carrying-out ‘asset-tracing’ for FTX.