The Bahamian government reportedly ordered former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried to create a new cryptocurrency that government officials could control.
As Bloomberg reported on Dec. 12, Bahamian government officials reportedly approached Bankman-Fried after FTX collapsed in November and asked him to create new digital assets worth “several hundred million dollars.” dollars”. The resulting monetary units of the new cryptocurrency should also be placed directly under the control of the island state.
The report also says the country’s government gave Bankman-Fried access to the insolvent trading platform’s computer systems after previously stripping it of access rights. According to US lawyers, Bahamian officials are “responsible for granting unauthorized access” to FTX systems, which were intended to support digital assets under the control of US courts.
John J. Ray III, the famous liquidator, who is now the CEO of FTX and is responsible for its liquidation, could see that an unauthorized person was mining new coins while he and his team tried to take control of the system. to win back.
The new allegations are the next chapter in the dispute between FTX’s US bankruptcy trustees – as FTX Group’s bankruptcy was filed in the US state of Delaware – and authorities in the Bahamas, where the trading platform remains based. Previously, appointed insolvency practitioners in the Bahamas had asked their US counterparts for extensive access to the platform’s data and systems.
“This is consistent with a request for expanded access, which should be granted to the Bahamian government immediately,” lawyers for the US bankruptcy administration said on Tuesday.
However, US insolvency administrators want to prevent this as they suspect apparent cooperation between the Bahamian government and Sam Bankman-Fried. The mere fact that the FTX on November 10 – i.e. a day before the bankruptcy filing – briefly opened up payments only to residents of the island state, lawyers see as a sign of cooperation unfair.