- FTX CEO John Ray III has said that the exchange could reopen if a buyer is found
- Ray said that he was aware that the underlying tech was known to perform well, and there are interested parties
- He added that he would do what would get ex-customers the best return
The current CEO of failed crypto exchange FTX has suggested that it may reopen under a new owner given its popularity before it crashed. John Ray III told the Wall Street Journal that “everything is on the table” regarding what happens with the exchange once the mess has been cleared away, noting that it would be a shame to lose the underlying technology, which many people in the crypto space had approved of. The price of the FTT token, associated with the bankrupt exchange, rocketed 31% as a result.
Value in a Reboot
Ray took over FTX following its collapse, and famously said that what we witnessed made it “worse than Enron”, whose liquidation he oversaw. He has since criticised the way in which the exchange was operated by Sam Bankman-Fried, but having been enmeshed in the inner workings of the exchange two months now, Ray has seen enough to believe that there is some value in someone taking over and rebooting it.
Noting how the likes of Voyager Digital have used the bankruptcy process to find new buyers, Ray told the Journal he is looking into whether reviving FTX international and making it operational again would work out better for the company’s customers than simply liquidating assets or selling the platform. He told the outlet, “There are stakeholders we’re working with who’ve identified what they see is a viable business,” which backs up the fact that FTX was one of the best performing cryptocurrency exchanges in terms of uptime and operation under pressure.
Ray added that, “Everything is on the table,” and that, “If there is a path forward on that (a takeover), then we will not only explore that, we’ll do it.”
However, even if a buyer does step in and relaunch the exchange, things still don’t look great for customers – FTX identified “substantial shortfalls” of assets compared to what it owes customers, despite finding over $5.5 billion in liquid assets.
