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FTX shareholders could get $1 billion after crypto firm is cleared to fully repay customers

A judge has reportedly approved payments to customers of collapsed crypto exchange FTX — and its shareholders could get $1 billion in seized assets.

On Monday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey approved the firm’s bankruptcy plan to use billions in assets it has recovered since its collapse to fully repay customers , Reuters reported. FTX had $12.6 billion in assets in June, but that number could grow to $16.5 billion after the firm is finished with finding and selling its assets, Bloomberg reported, citing court documents. The crypto exchange sold a majority of its stake in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic in March for $884 million, CNBC reported.

“Certainly we benefitted from the bull crypto markets of the last year,” Ken Pasquale, a creditor attorney, told the judge, according to Bloomberg. Pasquale was referring to the state of the crypto market during the exchange’s collapse in November 2022, when customers thought they would only be able to receive a portion of their funds back.

The firm’s preferred shareholders could also get a $1 billion slice from a portion of assets that were seized by federal prosecutors, Bloomberg reported. That money includes $626 million from the sale of FTX co-founders Sam Bankman-Fried’s and Gary Wang’s shares of Robinhood ( HOOD ).

Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of fraud , was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March for his role in FTX’s collapse.

In May, the crypto exchange said it expected 98% of its creditors to get 118% of the amount of their allowed claims back, while others were expected to get 100% of their claims, as well as billions in interest. FTX expected the total value of its assets, once converted to cash and made available for distribution, to be between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion.

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