By AFP - Agence France Presse
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Customers of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which filed for bankruptcy protection last November, would get back the bulk of their deposits under a plan proposed by liquidators.
The announcement comes as FTX co-founder and former majority shareholder Sam Bankman-Fried stands trial in New York, accused of illegally using customer accounts to fund the activities of his investment firm, Alameda Research.
The liquidators, led by administrator John Ray, intend to pay FTX's customers around 90 percent of the "distributable" value -- or assets -- which the liquidators recover, according to a statement published late Monday.
A progress report at the end of August put the amount recovered since the bankruptcy filing at $7.8 billion, compared with $9 billion claimed by the platform's creditors.
"Customers are projected to recover a substantial portion of their losses," Andrew Entwistle, a consumer rights attorney with Entwistle & Cappucci LLP, told AFP.
The plan must be submitted by December 16, and then approved by John Dorsey, a federal judge based in Wilmington, Delaware.
The liquidators warned that the final amount of recovered assets has not yet been finalized, and will depend on many variables, including fluctuations in the price of digital assets which make up part of the holdings.
FTX's debtors "currently anticipate that customers of both exchanges will not be paid in full," according to the statement.
"Together, starting in the most challenging financial disaster I have seen, the debtors and their creditors have created enormous value from a situation that easily could have been a near-total loss for customers," Ray said.
When FTX filed for bankruptcy, just over $8 billion in customer funds were missing, according to the US Attorney's Office in Manhattan.
It was the world's second-largest cryptocurrency trading platform at the time.
The prosecution claims that these funds were used to make real estate purchases and political donations, and also to bankroll Alameda's risky investments.
Sam Bankman-Fried has denied any wrongdoing.
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