FTX’s new chief executive, John J. Ray III, said he is looking into the possibility of reviving the bankrupt crypto exchange as he works to return money to the failed company’s customers and creditors, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. In his first interview since taking over FTX in November, Ray said that he has set up a task force to explore restarting FTX.com, the company’s main international exchange. Although top FTX executives have been accused of criminal misconduct, some customers have praised its technology and suggested that there would be value in rebooting the platform, he said. “Everything is on the table,” Ray said. “If there is a path forward on that, then we will not only explore that, we’ll do it.” FTX’s bankruptcy filing marked the largest of several failures of cryptocurrency platforms last year that froze millions of users’ access to their accounts. FTX, Celsius Network LLC, Voyager Digital Ltd. and BlockFi Inc. have used the chapter 11 process to explore restarting their businesses and selling their platforms to stronger rivals. Another option is to simply close up shop and return crypto holdings to customers as quickly as possible. Ray said that he would look into whether reviving FTX’s international exchange would recover more value for the company’s customers than his team could get from simply liquidating assets or selling the platform.
