FTX customers are still grappling with crypto platform's collapse
By Elizabeth Howcroft and Medha Singh
LONDON (Reuters) — For Lee Rees, 43, FTX was one of a handful of exchanges on which the London-based cryptocurrency trader earned a good living, profiting off fleeting price differences across the crypto market.
When FTX collapsed last year, it took $100,000 of Rees' money, around half his annual income, with it.
«It affected my life,» he said. «I had a life to pay for. It's like your boss doesn't pay you. You can't live, can you?»
Rees is one of more than an estimated 1 million customers potentially facing losses after FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges at the time, suddenly collapsed and filed for bankruptcy in November. It soon emerged that customer funds had gone missing.
FTX founder and former-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of embezzling $10 billion from unsuspecting customers to prop up his hedge fund Alameda Research, buy luxury properties and fund political donations. His trial began in New York this week.
On Wednesday, Bankman-Fried's attorney told the court his client had overlooked risk management but did not steal customer money. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Prosecutors are calling some FTX customers to testify that they were told their assets were safe, and to share how FTX's collapse affected them.
Customers Reuters spoke with said they have created support groups to help each another navigate the complex bankruptcy claims process, while others said they have been targeted by scammers promising to retrieve their cash.
And some – undeterred — are back on the crypto roller coaster.
«As the crypto market has recovered, many FTX customers are concluding that they can sell their claim, buy crypto again, and
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