Finance & economics | The $10.6bn question

Will FTX’s customers be repaid?

As Sam Bankman-Fried is locked up, his erstwhile depositors await their fate

Sam Bankman-Fried
Jesus ChristPhotograph: Getty Images

In the days after the fall of his crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried opened a Google Doc and began to type. Beneath the title “probably bad ideas” he listed potential strategies, which included coming out as a Republican and arguing that “SBF died for our sins”. Mr Bankman-Fried ultimately decided against both, but there is one fiction he never let die. He has always claimed FTX was, in fact, solvent and could repay the $10.6bn it owed customers.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “The $10.6bn question”

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