The bankrupt FTX announces through new CEO John Ray III that it has resumed salary payments to the remaining staff. This does not mean that things are suddenly going well again with the stock exchange platform. The chance of a restart seems minimal, but part of the Chapter 11 procedure in the United States is that the staff receive their salary service.
Also drama for the staff
The staff of the crypto exchange has also been hit hard by the sudden problems. You have to imagine being told from one day to the next that your employer has run out of money. That causes a lot of stress and John Ray III also acknowledged this in the press statement. Now they receive at least three weeks’ worth of salary payments.
John Ray III is a bankruptcy expert who is now taking over as CEO to keep things running smoothly. Previously, John Ray III indicated that FTX’s financial health is the most dramatic he has seen in his long career. That in itself does not bode well for a possible restart of the crypto exchange.
Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and several former directors of the exchange platform such as Gary Wang, Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison are of course not getting anything at the moment. They have all resigned and are logically no longer entitled to continued payments. They are ultimately the ones responsible for the problems.
Do users get anything back?
If there is anything left for the users in the end, the question is how long it will take them to get those funds back. For example, in 2014 we recorded the toppling of Mt. got gox. At the time, this was the largest Bitcoin exchange in the world. The funds of the former users of Mt. Gox, however, have still not been returned. Incidentally, that will soon change, but then we are still 8 to 9 years further.
Stephen Eeral, an Australian lawyer, also said recently that it could take years, if not decades, for FTX’s clients to get anything back. The top 50 creditors alone have yet to receive $3.1 billion from the fallen exchange platform. This is evident from the documents associated with the Chapter 11 procedure that FTX is currently going through.