bahamas

ChainCatcher message, FTX creditor representative Sunil tweeted that the FTX Bahamas claims process may fall under the jurisdiction of UK/EU rules and requires additional approval.

ChainCatcher news, according to Business Wire, the Bahamas Securities Commission announced that the "Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges Act 2024" (DARE 2024) has been passed by the Bahamas Parliament and has become law. This bill builds on the 2020 DARE Act and introduces comprehensive reforms aimed at addressing the evolving landscape of digital assets and cryptocurrency markets.It is reported that the new law covers a broader range of digital asset activities, including advisory management services, digital asset derivatives, and investment services. The new law incorporates provisions related to digital asset custody and introduces the first disclosure system for digital asset staking. DARE 2024 also provides a clear definition for stablecoins, stipulating the registration of existing stablecoins and acceptable forms of reserve assets, while establishing new requirements for the custody, segregation, reporting, and redemption of reserve assets. The issuance of algorithmic stablecoins is explicitly prohibited.

ChainCatcher news, the liquidators of FTX Digital Markets Ltd. have initiated the next phase of the liquidation process. Customers of FTX.com need to choose whether to participate in the official liquidation procedure in the Bahamas ("Bahamas Process") or the Chapter 11 case in the United States ("U.S. Process"), and must make their choice by 4:00 AM on August 17.The liquidators of FTX Digital Markets will hold a Q&A session to help customers understand the selection process. The first Q&A session will be held on July 31 at 7:00 PM Beijing time, and no prior registration is required.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the Central Bank of the Bahamas is developing regulations requiring commercial banks to provide access to its central bank digital currency.John Rolle, the Governor of the Central Bank of the Bahamas, stated that the adoption of the Sand Dollar (the CBDC launched by the Bahamas in 2020) is still limited, so the government is formulating regulations to effectively compel commercial banks to issue the central bank digital currency to promote its adoption.

ChainCatcher news, according to Reuters, the Bahamas is preparing to introduce legislation requiring commercial banks to support its central bank digital currency "Sand Dollar" to promote its adoption. The Governor of the Central Bank of the Bahamas, John Rolle, stated that CBDC regulations should be implemented within the next two years, and it is expected that all commercial banks will eventually enter this field and will be required to provide their customers with access to the central bank digital currency.The Central Bank of the Bahamas launched the CBDC "Sand Dollar" in 2020, and its CBDC currently accounts for less than 1% of the currency in circulation in the Bahamas.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, FTX liquidators are about to sell Sam Bankman-Fried's $30 million penthouse in the Bahamas.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, a lawsuit filed in a Florida federal court on Friday shows that Bahamian bank Deltec Bank & Trust Ltd is accused of providing SBF with "secret" short-term credit worth billions of dollars to purchase Tether.The document also claims that Deltec helped SBF misappropriate customer funds by transferring money between FTX and Alameda accounts.It is reported that SBF's companies started opening accounts at Deltec in 2018, partly to more easily obtain Tether. According to the lawsuit, Alameda only needed to transfer its funds from the Deltec account to Tether's account to purchase tokens. Starting in 2021, Deltec granted Alameda a three-day grace period to pay for the Tethers it purchased, effectively providing the fund with a short-term credit line. The bank did not offer grace periods to other clients, and a Deltec executive told Alameda traders to keep this confidential. This "secret credit line" sometimes exceeded $2 billion. Alameda then sold these tokens for profit.Deltec lawyer Desiree Moore stated that the bank and its chairman Jean Chalopin were unaware of FTX's misconduct before it became public.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the FTX bankruptcy committee plans to sell 35 properties in the Bahamas, including the luxury apartment Orchid Penthouse where SBF, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, and Caroline Ellison once lived together.FTX lawyers stated that the sale price of the properties must be at least 80% of the estimated price set by the designated broker. Any sale of properties exceeding $5 million should be reported to the U.S. trustee, the creditors' committee lawyers, and stakeholders who have made legitimate claims against the listed properties. The proceeds from the sales will be used for distribution to FTX customers.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, FTX has raised approximately $7 billion in assets, including $1.16 billion in SOL and $560 million in BTC, according to a court filing submitted on Monday.In addition to the $1 billion held on November 11, the company also received $1.5 billion in cash and held $3.4 billion worth of cryptocurrencies as of August 31. Furthermore, the company holds over $300 million worth of more than 1,300 lesser-known tokens with potentially lower liquidity, such as MAPS and serum (SRM).The document also details the $2.2 billion in cash, cryptocurrencies, equity, and real estate received by Bankman-Fried and other executives like Nishad Singh, Zixiao "Gary" Wang, and Caroline Ellison in the months leading up to the bankruptcy, which may be significant as U.S. law allows for the recovery of these funds and their inclusion in the pool of assets available for creditors. The filing also reported 38 apartments, penthouses, and other properties in the Bahamas, valued at approximately $200 million.

ChainCatcher news, a court in the Bahamas has blocked the government from agreeing to allow U.S. prosecutors to file certain criminal charges against Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The Supreme Court of the Bahamas stated that the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Justice cannot agree to new charges before SBF has a formal opportunity to contest them.Last month, U.S. federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicated that they would withdraw five overseas bribery, bank fraud, and conspiracy charges against SBF if the Bahamian government did not agree. These charges were not included in the initial eight counts against SBF last December, which focused on the collapse of FTX the previous month, but were added after his extradition. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, legal documents submitted by FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's (SBF) lawyers indicate that if additional fees are incurred, the fraud lawsuit against FTX founder SBF could be delayed by months or even years, potentially exceeding the planned October trial date. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to documents released by the Bahamas Securities Commission, the Bahamas plans to introduce a new cryptocurrency bill that includes regulatory measures for stablecoins, PoW mining, and cryptocurrency collateralized lending.The document also states that operators of digital asset exchanges must ensure that the systems and controls used in their activities are adequate and appropriate for the scale and nature of their business. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to information from PwC's official website, the liquidation process for the Bahamian entity FTX Digital has been extended to August 9, 2023. The provisional liquidator (PwC) has also submitted a Chapter 15 application to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware. On February 15, the U.S. court issued an order recognizing the provisional liquidation as a foreign main proceeding, and FTX Digital is not subject to U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.Since the appointment by the Supreme Court, the provisional liquidator has been reviewing FTX Digital's financial status, investigating the causes of the FTX global collapse and its impact on FTX Digital, seeking to identify and protect assets, and exploring all available paths for the company to maximize potential value for all stakeholders. This work is ongoing.The claims process will go through the following stages: claim registration, creating a login in the claims portal, identity verification, accepting balances, and asset transfer. Currently, the claims process is in Phase 1, where PwC invites clients and creditors to register their contact information. (Source link)

According to ChainCatcher news, as reported by CoinDesk, the joint provisional liquidators appointed by the Bahamian court stated that FTX transferred $7.7 billion in assets from the Bahamas to the United States before filing for bankruptcy last year.Of this, $5.6 billion was transferred from the Bahamian subsidiary FTX Digital's custodial accounts to the U.S. entity FTX Trading, and another $2.1 billion was transferred to FTX Alameda Research. "The Bahamas also has about $3 million in other tangible assets, mainly related to office furniture, equipment, and a fleet owned by employees in the Bahamas." FTX representatives stated that there is still no conclusion on whether the remaining assets belong to the Bahamas or the United States. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, FTX debtors and FTX Bahamas joint provisional liquidators have reached a cooperation agreement on the terms of mutual participation in legal proceedings in each jurisdiction. "According to the cooperation agreement, the parties will begin to work together to share information, protect assets, and return them to their remaining assets, while coordinating litigation against third parties and exploring strategic alternatives to maximize stakeholder recoveries, in order to enhance stakeholder recovery rates." This agreement is subject to approval by the courts of Delaware and the Bahamas.The parties also agreed to dispose of Bahamian real estate in a process led by the provisional liquidators and supervised by the courts of both jurisdictions, as well as to confirm the process for the remaining cryptocurrency assets controlled by the Bahamas Securities Commission in the Fireblocks accounts previously disclosed by the FTX debtors. Both parties expressed satisfaction that the cryptocurrency assets are protected by the Bahamas Securities Commission and reached an agreement on the process for handling the remaining assets under its control. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, the Bahamas Securities Commission officially stated that it must again correct significant misstatements made by FTX debtor representative John J. Ray III in media and court documents. Among them, on December 30, 2022, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy-related debtor representative publicly questioned the Commission's calculations of digital assets, which were transferred to a digital wallet controlled by the Commission on November 12, 2022, to exercise its authority as a regulatory body, and acted under the orders of the Supreme Court of the Bahamas, while the debtor's public assertion was based on incomplete information.Previously, John J. Ray III also made public statements claiming that the Bahamas instructed SBF to mint a large number of new tokens, which were submitted in court documents without evidence, and then testified again before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee. International media widely reported the statement that Bahamian officials instructed FTX employees to mint $300 million in new FTT tokens. Such unfounded remarks have caused distrust in Bahamian public institutions, and the Commission discussed the process of obtaining digital assets held or controlled by relevant agencies. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, FTX announced that on November 12, 2022, the Bahamas Securities Commission required Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) and Wang to transfer some digital assets to a Fireblocks wallet, with the wallet address being 0x2a4f8d77bade18256b1bdb3cf8782645037f60d3.According to Etherscan data, this address currently holds approximately 1,938.41 Ethereum and nearly 196 million FTT, with a total value of only about $167 million, which is far from the $3.5 billion claimed by the Bahamas Securities Commission. FTX has requested the Bahamas Securities Commission to return the seized assets. (Source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to Reuters, FTX has disputed and clarified the Bahamas Securities Commission's (SCB) seizure of $3.5 billion in FTX assets, stating that when the Bahamian regulators confiscated FTX-related digital assets in November, their value was only $296 million. Most of the seized cryptocurrencies were FTX's FTT, which had dropped to a value of $167 million by December 20.ChainCatcher previously reported that the SCB stated it took control of $3.5 billion in digital assets from FTX Digital Markets shortly after the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The reason for seizing the assets was due to concerns arising from the SBF incident, as well as cyberattacks on the trading platform, which made the Bahamas aware of the risk that the assets were "about to dissipate." (source link)

ChainCatcher news, the Bahamas Securities Commission released a document stating that on November 12, 2022, the Commission transferred all digital assets valued at over $3.5 billion (at the market price at the time of transfer) that were held or controlled by FTX Digital Markets Ltd (FTXDM) or its agents into a digital wallet controlled by the Commission, pursuant to an order from the Supreme Court of the Bahamas. The Commission stated that the above measures were taken to facilitate the protection and security of the assets held for FTXDM's customers and creditors, and were conducted under a freezing order requested by the Commission and approved by the Supreme Court of the Bahamas on November 16, 2022. (Source link)