FTX, which had been among the many world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is headquartered within the Bahamas. The agency, whose liquidity crunch compelled the corporate to declare chapter on Nov. 11, is the topic of investigations by Bahamian and U.S. authorities. In mid-November, the Royal Bahamas Police stated that authorities investigators within the Bahamas had been taking a look at whether or not any “criminal misconduct occurred.”
“We are in the early stages of an active and ongoing investigation,” Pinder stated on Sunday, in response to ready remarks for the speech. “It is a very complex investigation.” He stated it concerned each civil and legal authorities.
Pinder stated that the Bahamas Securities Commission, Financial Intelligence Unit and the police’s Financial Crimes Unit would “continue to investigate the facts and circumstances regarding FTX’s insolvency crisis, and any potential violations of Bahamian law.”
Pinder additionally defended the Bahamas’ regulatory regime and stated that its Securities Commission had moved shortly “because of the strength of the legislative framework.”
Bahamas securities regulators had revoked FTX Digital’s license and started involuntary liquidation proceedings the day earlier than the U.S. chapter case kicked off.
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“Any attempt to lay the entirety of this debacle at the feet of the Bahamas, because FTX is headquartered here, would be a gross oversimplification of reality,” Pinder stated, including that the Bahamas Securities Commission had moved with “remarkable” pace in response.
Sam Bankman-Fried, 30, based FTX in 2019 and rode cryptocurrency growth to a web price that Forbes pegged a 12 months in the past at $26.5 billion. Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s chief government officer the identical day because the agency’s chapter submitting.
The liquidity crunch got here after Bankman-Fried secretly moved $10 billion of FTX buyer funds to his proprietary buying and selling agency, Alameda Research, Reuters reported, citing two folks accustomed to the matter.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, led by veteran securities fraud prosecutor Damian Williams, in mid-November started investigating how FTX dealt with buyer funds, a supply with data of the probe informed Reuters. The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission additionally opened probes.
FTX’s demise comes after a string of meltdowns which have taken down different key gamers together with Voyager Digital and Celsius Network and led some international buyers to query the viability of the cryptocurrency sector.