Jesse Powell Questions Prospects for FTX reboot

Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell questioned the viability of plans to revive the collapsed trading platform FTX.

“FTX 2.0 would be worse than starting from scratch. Without a team, without technology, without licences, without banking, a tainted brand,” he wrote.

Powell said that the trustee should simply {{AOPEN_6}}first disclosed{{ACLOSE_6}} that the plan would be to auction the domain and trademark to the highest bidder. The rest of the statements were an attempt to lure money from creditors who have become brand-damaged.

However, Powell’s remarks were раскритиковала «FTX 2.0 Coalition», which said there were “other incentives.”

In January 2023 the then-CEO of FTX, John Ray first disclosed that a special task force was examining the possibility of restarting the platform.

In April, lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell allowed a restructuring of the exchange with a revival rather than liquidation or sale at court hearings.

The timetable presented suggested that a detailed plan would be submitted in the third quarter. It was at about that time that the idea of reviving FTX was voiced by the former head of institutional sales, Zayn Takett.

In his view, the platform should resume offering all products that existed before the crash, adding a market for tokenised claims.

In a March presentation, representatives of the exchange estimated a total shortfall of $8.7 billion to cover claims, of which around $1.6 billion was in Bitcoin.

On July 31, FTX presented a plan restart of the offshore exchange with access for users outside the United States. Later, the creditors’ committee criticised the leadership’s idea.