The fallout from last year’s stunning collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has brought with it, among other things, the ongoing criminal trial of founder Sam Bankman Freed and the unwinding of a case in which $8 billion in consumer funds was spent. Through this, I can still feel it.
The Wall Street Journal reported that of the $7.7 billion spent by FTX executives, about $243 million of the unspecified spending (the central part of the lawsuit) went to real estate in the Bahamas.
FTX famously moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to the Bahamas due to favorable cryptocurrency laws.
FTX’s most expensive acquisition was a $30 million penthouse in Albany, a luxury resort on New Providence Island, the paper said. Records show Ryan Salame, president of FTX Properties, signed a contract in March indicating it was the home of a “key person.”
The $39.5 million listing for an Albany penthouse purportedly home to Bankman Freed, nicknamed “The Orchid,” was revealed to be a farce earlier this week.
Records show FTX Holdings paid about $72 million for seven units in Albany.
Signed by Bankman Freed, former head of engineering Nishad Singh and co-founder Gary Wang, other luxury properties acquired by FTX include three buildings at One Cable Beach; There was a condominium. Units will range in price from $950,000 to $2 million, the outlet said.
Bankman Freed’s parents were signatories on a house in the gated community of Old Ft.
While $243 million is a significant amount, it pales in comparison to the $5 billion FTX has invested in tech companies, the magazine reported. Many of those bets didn’t pay off. There is also $2.2 billion paid by FTX to insiders, likely consumer funds, the outlet said.
And FTX didn’t hesitate to dole out as much as $80 million in cash to politicians.
In any case, the collapse of FTX has devastated the real estate buyer class of crypto investors. Brokers say cash-poor buyers whose funds are tied up in digital currencies will have a hard time fulfilling their contracts or scale back their planned real estate purchases.
— Ted Glanser