FTX's new management told a procedural hearing on Tuesday that FTX had over $1 billion in assets identified. The company located about $720 million in cash assets, which the exchange has yet to consolidate, in U.S. financial institutions authorized to hold funds by the U.S. Department of Justice. Another near $500 million is already being held in U.S. institutions.
“We are reaching out to all of those banks and changing the signatories on the accounts so that we can get access to the accounts and move the cash as much as we can to authorized depository institutions,” FTX’s new chief financial officer, Mary Cilia, speaking under oath, said during part of bankruptcy proceedings.
Around $130 million of cash is locked up in Japan, Cilia said – where local regulations have largely ringfenced funds for local customers. Another $6 million is being kept for operational expenses such as payroll, and most of the remaining $423 million at unauthorized U.S. institutions are mainly at a single broker, she added, though she declined to identify the broker. $485 million are already in an authorized deposit institution, Cilia said.
There are “ongoing efforts” to identify the company’s international crypto assets and shift them to cold wallets, using custodial providers such as Bitgo, Steve Coverick, a senior director at FTX’s financial advisors Alvarez & Marsal told the hearing.
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