Crypto exchange FTX owes nearly $3.1bn to 50 biggest creditors

The collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX owes its 50 biggest creditors nearly $3.1bn (£2.6bn), according to a filing in a US bankruptcy court.

The exchange owes about $1.45bn to its top 10 creditors, it said in a court filing over the weekend, without naming them. The largest creditor is owed $226m.

The collapse of FTX rocked the cryptocurrency industry and reduced the paper fortune of its 30-year-old founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, from more than $15bn to almost nothing in a matter of days.

FTX and its affiliates filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on 11 November, leaving an estimated 1 million creditors, although the extent of the losses is not yet fully known because of alleged poor record-keeping. The company said on Saturday that at least 101 companies around the world were part of the bankruptcy proceedings.

The exchange was the second biggest in the world until concerns over its solvency sparked a surge in withdrawals, which exposed that it did not have assets notionally worth billions of dollars that it claimed.

FTX on Sunday warned that cryptocurrency stolen in the final stages of its collapse was being transferred to other exchanges. The allegedly stolen cryptocurrency was worth $270m on Sunday, according to analysts tracking the transactions. FTX asked other exchanges to help to return the assets to the bankruptcy court.

Speaking on Monday, a deputy governor of the Bank of England said the implosion of FTX showed the need to bring crypto within the regulatory framework.