FTX advisers have found $5 billion cash or sellable crypto

FTX Group advisers have found more than $5 billion in cash or cryptocurrency assets that it may be able to sell to help repay creditors, a lawyer for the company told the judge overseeing the biggest crypto bankruptcy.

The company is working to monetize assets with a book value of $4.6 billion, company attorney Andrew G. Dietderich said in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, on Wednesday. Advisers have also found a large amount of other crypto assets that are illiquid and therefore harder to sell, he said.

Advisers for the failed crypto exchange have been sorting through the wreckage left behind by its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, since the company collapsed into bankruptcy in November. FTX’s books and records ranged from messy to nonexistent before its implosion, its new chief executive has said.

FTX advisers have identified more than 9 million customer accounts, Dietderich said. The company doesn’t yet know how much money creditors will get back or what percentage of their debts will be repaid, he said. The company has also identified about 120 billion transactions that had been handled on FTX platforms before they were shut down, he said.

The company was in court Wednesday to ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John T. Dorsey for approval of a handful of routine motions and also to keep the names of its 9 million creditors and customers secret.

Dorsey agreed with the company’s argument that the customer names could be considered a valuable trade secret. Customer lists are often sold in bankruptcy cases to raise money to repay creditors.

A group of media outlets, including Bloomberg News, had argued that the names should be released.

Dorsey opened the hearing by announcing he had received a letter from four U.S. senators urging him to appoint an independent examiner to investigate FTX. The group argued that FTX lawyers may have conflicts that would make it difficult for them to conduct an independent probe.

Dorsey said the letter would not influence him.

“It is an inappropriate ex parte communication,” Dorsey said, referring to the term used for communicating with a judge without informing anyone else in a case. “It will have no impact on my decisions.”