Slide number 1
Our experts’ involvement in crypto analysis and optimizing the monetization strategy for digital assets significantly improved creditors’ expected returns, outcomes and risk levels.
Funds Recovered
Driving Maximum Creditor Recovery in the FTX Bankruptcy
Funds Recovered
Driving Maximum Creditor Recovery in the FTX Bankruptcy
Key Contacts
How do you assess value and maximize recovery of complex assets in a volatile market for creditors?
In 2022, FTX, once the third-largest crypto exchange, and Alameda, a related crypto trading firm, suffered a spike in customer withdrawals amidst allegations of fraud, leaving many customers unable to access their assets.
Soon after, when FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy, its customers became creditors, while billions of dollars in cryptocurrency assets remained with the exchange and were subject to market risks.
FTI Consulting’s experts advised the Unsecured Creditor Committee (“UCC”) on the optimal strategy to monetize the vast cryptocurrency holdings to ensure maximum recovery.
Drawing on the full strength of FTI Consulting, we helped enhance asset values, including designing a digital asset monetization strategy; optimized creditor recoveries, including developing a detailed claims recovery model; and communicated with creditor and customer stakeholders.
In 2025 the American Bankruptcy Institute recognized the work with FTX – including FTI Consulting’s contribution as Financial Advisor to the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors – as “International Matter of the Year.”
Our Impact
Creditor recoveries in the FTX bankruptcy were improved by more than $7 billion — and exceeded 100% of creditor claims through a process strengthened by FTI Consulting’s expertise in digital assets, data forensics, trading analytics and monetization, corporate finance and strategic communications.
By the Numbers
Maximizing Recovery
$7B+
Amount by Which Creditor Recoveries Were Improved
100%
Creditor Claims Recovered
118-142%
Projected Recoveries on Creditor Claims
Slide number 2
Using FTI Consulting’s comprehensive recovery model, the committee was able to negotiate and reach multibillion-dollar settlements among FTX’s diverse creditor groups, including its exchange customers and non-customer creditors.
Slide number 3
FTI Consulting’s analysis of recoveries and advocacy for the UCC ultimately resulted in FTX’s unsecured creditors being projected to receive 118% to 142% recoveries on their claims.
In crisis and transformation,what matters most is what you do next.
Our Role
Drawing on the full strength of FTI Consulting’s multidisciplinary experts
FTI Consulting’s digital assets and blockchain experts led the creditor effort to locate assets through on-chain tracing, evaluate custody providers, monetize assets and identify digital asset fund flows and patterns critical to the investigation. The team also provided electronic data support services, including for emerging data sources discovery. Our expert testimony was cited in the court ruling.
FTI Consulting designed the trading analytics used throughout the bankruptcy. The team also conducted quantitative assessments of risk, performance and liquidity, including estimating discounts for illiquidity and lack of marketability, to establish guidelines for optimizing the monetization of the exchange’s crypto assets.
The team assessed alternative income sources for the crypto holdings, including staking the tokens and underwriting options, to improve recovery before certain tokens could be sold. They also designed an auction framework and settlement rules for marketing locked tokens, ensuring the estate secured maximum value and that the sales process could not be manipulated.
The team developed a comprehensive digital and social communications strategy to meet customers where they are — on platforms like X and Reddit — delivering timely case updates and clear guidance on when and how to take action to preserve their claims.
FTI Consulting specialists drew on deep financial, economic and accounting expertise to help the UCC make informed decisions regarding proposed settlements and negotiate more effectively for its claims.
By ensuring the accuracy and completeness of information provided by the FTX debtors and delivering the critical data, analyses and models needed to adjudicate material claims, assess plan alternatives, monetize significant assets and evaluate settlement structures, FTI Consulting helped the UCC shape the Chapter 11 process to maximize creditor recoveries.
The recovery was “an outcome that seemed unthinkable when [FTX] collapsed into bankruptcy in 2022.”1
Footnotes
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