The newly appointed Chief Executive Officer of the crypto currency exchange FTX, John Ray, has stated (1) that his time spent at the company thus far is comparable to that of "hell." After the implosion of FTX in November 2022, Ray took over as head of the exchange and assumed control of its operations.
However, according to the CEO of FTX, who testified on Monday before the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware on the company's case, things could have been smoother.
Ray continued to reveal information regarding the state he was in when he first saw the FTX exchange. According to the CEO, when he took charge of FTX toward the end of the previous year, the company needed a physical office.
Apart from that, there was "not a single list of anything," which encompassed everything from income to insurance to bank accounts. According to Ray, as was to be expected, the administration he oversaw immediately sprang into action and started a "huge rush for information."
Additionally, the Chief Executive Officer of FTX, John Ray, disclosed that at one point in time, there were a variety of security alarms amid many efforts to steal cryptocurrency holdings. He said:
"Those hacks continued for the better part of the whole night [...] It was forty-eight hours of what I can only characterize as horror on earth.
Ray also addressed whether he had any interaction with any of the former executives that worked at the exchange before it was taken over. He said that he had never met anybody, including the current CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, the co-founder of FTX Gary Wang, or Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO.
Regarding Appointment of an Independent Examiner in the Bankruptcy Case
Meanwhile, it is possible that it is important to bring out that Ray's incriminating evidence came in response to a motion filed by the Office of the United States Trustee claiming that the court needs to appoint a neutral examiner.
The US Trustee's office official, Juliet Sarkessian, stated that an impartial examiner would provide openness to the bankruptcy processes, and it is anticipated that the examiner will make a public report later.
The FTX CEO has some reservations about this move for whatever reason. Ray claims that he has retained the services of experts who are now investigating the operations that FTX has carried out. Moreover, he thinks that appointing an impartial investigator may jeopardize the group's efforts.
In addition to this, he asserts that such a shift has the potential to result in unintentional errors, which can cause further value losses of up to "hundreds of millions of dollars."
During the hearing that took place on February 6, Judge John Dorsey did not decide on the motion. Instead, he requested that attorneys from both sides engage in conversation to find a "consensual resolution" to the problem of an impartial examiner.
