Cryptocurrency exchange FTX owes $3.1 billion to 50 creditors

 Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which declared bankruptcy last week, says the stolen cryptocurrency has been moved to other exchanges.

According to a lawsuit in a US bankruptcy court, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX owes about 50 creditors about $3.1 billion (£2.6 billion).

In a lawsuit over the weekend, the exchange said it owed about $1.45 billion to its 10 largest creditors, the largest creditor being $226 million.

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

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

The exchange was the second largest in the world as it raised concerns about its financial transaction, revealing that it did not have billions of dollars in assets as it claimed.

The company said, it has started a strategic review of its global assets and is preparing to sell or reorganize some companies, with a contract with investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners. A hearing on FTX's applications is scheduled to take place before a US bankruptcy judge.

FTX warned against moving stolen cryptocurrency in the final stages of its crash to other exchanges. The alleged stolen cryptocurrency was worth $270 million on Sunday, according to analysts who track transactions. FTX has asked other exchanges to help return the assets to the bankruptcy court.

FTX has been backed by high-profile investors including venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, the world's largest asset manager BlackRock, and a string of well-known hedge fund managers. As well as celebrity endorsements, including American football star Tom Brady and comedian Larry David.

The company appointed John Ray III as its CEO, a restructuring expert who had previously oversaw the Enron bankruptcy, one of the most notorious and largest frauds in US history.

John Cunliffe, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, said the collapse of FTX demonstrated the need to bring cryptocurrencies into the regulatory framework.

He added that “while the cryptocurrency world is not currently large enough or sufficiently interconnected with mainstream finance to threaten the stability of the financial system, its links to mainstream finance are evolving rapidly.”