A timeline of the collapse at FTX

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A timeline of the collapse at FTX

2024-05-09 00:09 Last Updated At：00:11

FTX, once among the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, said this week that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after its monumental collapse.

FTX said in a court filing late Tuesday that it owes about $11.2 billion to its creditors. The exchange estimates that it has between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to distribute to them.

Here is a timeline of what led up to this week's announcement after an implosion at FTX kicked off what many had expected to become a “crypto winter.”

2022

Nov. 2: Coindesk reports Alameda Reseach, Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency trading firm, holds a large amount of FTT, a token issued by FTX, suggesting the finances of the two are intertwined and Alameda faces a cash crunch. The report spooks participants in the crypto market.

Nov. 6: Rival cryptocurrency exchange Binance announces that the firm plans to sell all its holdings in FTT. The price of FTT tanks.

Nov. 8: Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao said his company had signed a letter of intent to buy FTX because the smaller exchange was experiencing a “significant liquidity crunch.” That deal would be contingent, however, on a look at the books at FTX. The price for bitcoin tumbles 13%.

Nov. 9: Cryptocurrency prices plunge and after getting a closer look at the finances of FTX, Binance retreated and said there would be no acquisition. “In the beginning, our hope was to be able to support FTX’s customers to provide liquidity, but the issues are beyond our control or ability to help,” Binance said in a statement. Bitcoin prices drop another 14%.

Nov. 10: Cryptocurrency lender BlockFi announced it is “not able to do business as usual” and was pausing client withdrawals as a result of FTX’s implosion.

Nov. 11: FTX files for Chapter 11 and Bankman-Fried resigns. John Ray III, a long-time bankruptcy litigator who is best known for having to clean up the mess made after the collapse of Enron, is named the new CEO.

In its bankruptcy filing, FTX listed more than 130 affiliated companies around the globe. The company valued its assets between $10 billion to $50 billion, with a similar estimate for its liabilities. Bitcoin falls 10%.

Nov. 17: Ray gives a damning description of FTX’s operations under Bankman-Fried, from a lack of security controls to business funds being used to buy employees homes and luxuries.

Nov. 30: As part of a media blitz, Bankman-Fried tells New York Time’s Andrew Ross-Sorkin, “Look, I screwed up,” and didn't knowingly misuse clients' funds.

Dec. 12: Bankman-Fried is arrested in the Bahamas, where FTX is headquartered.

Dec. 13: The U.S. government charges Bankman-Fried with a host of financial crimes, alleging he intentionally deceived customers and investors to enrich himself and others, while playing a central role in the company’s multibillion-dollar collapse.

Federal prosecutors said Bankman-Fried devised “a scheme and artifice to defraud” FTX’s customers and investors beginning the year it was founded. He illegally diverted their money to cover expenses, debts and risky trades at Alameda Research, and to make lavish real estate purchases and large political donations, prosecutors said in a 13-page indictment.

Dec. 22: Bankman-Fried's parents agreed to sign a $250 million bond and keep him at their California home while he awaits trial.

2023

August 11: Judge revoked Bankman-Fried's bail and sent him to jail after concluding he had repeatedly tried to influence witnesses against him.

Oct. 3: Jury selection began for the trial.

Oct. 27: Bankman-Fried took the stand in his trial. He again acknowledged failures but denied defrauding anyone.

Nov. 3: Bankman-Fried is convicted of fraud for stealing at least $10 billion from customers and investors.

2024

March 28: Bankman-Fried is sentenced to 25 years in prison. Bitcoin has roared back from a massive sell-off during the scandal. Prices are up nearly 70%.

April 30: Changpeng Zhao, the founder of Binance, is sentenced to four months in prison for looking the other way as criminals used the platform to move money connected to child sex abuse, drug trafficking and terrorism.

May 8: FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded, and some will get more than that.

Biden tells Morehouse graduates that scenes in Gaza from the Israel-Hamas war break his heart, too

2024-05-20 05:39 Last Updated At：05:40

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden on Sunday offered his most direct recognition of U.S. students' anguish over the Israel-Hamas war, telling graduates of historically Black Morehouse College that he heard their voices of protest and that scenes from the conflict in Gaza break his heart, too.

“I support peaceful nonviolent protest," he told students at the all-male college, some of whom wore Palestinian scarves known as keffiyehs around their shoulders on top of their black graduation gowns. "Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them.”

Biden said there's a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, "that's why I've called for an immediate cease-fire to stop the fighting" and bring home hostages still being held by Hamas after its militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7. The president's comments came near the end of a commencement address in which he also reflected on American democracy and his role in safeguarding it.

“It’s one of the hardest, most complicated problems in the world,” Biden said. “There’s nothing easy about it. I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family. But most of all I know it breaks your heart. It breaks mine as well.”

To date, Biden had limited his public comments around the protests on U.S. college campuses to upholding the right to peaceful protest.

The speech — and one he's giving later Sunday in Detroit — is part of a burst of outreach to Black constituents by the Democratic president, whose support among these voters has softened since their strong backing helped put him in the Oval Office.

Biden spent much of the approximately 30-minute speech focused on the problems at home. He condemned Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigrants and noted that the class of 2024 entered college during the COVID-19 pandemic and following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man killed by a Minneapolis police officer. Biden said it was natural for them, and others, to wonder whether the democracy “you hear about actually works for you.”

“If Black men are being killed in the street. What is democracy?" he asked. "The trail of broken promises that still leave Black communities behind. What is democracy? If you have to be 10 times better than anyone else to get a fair shot.”

Protests over the war have roiled America's college campuses. Columbia University canceled its main commencement ceremony. At Morehouse, the announcement that Biden would be the commencement speaker drew some backlash among the faculty and those who oppose the president's handling of the war. Some Morehouse alumni circulated an online letter condemning administrators for inviting Biden and solicited signatures to pressure Morehouse President David Thomas to rescind it.

The letter claimed that Biden’s approach to Israel amounted to support of genocide in Gaza and was out of step with the pacifism expressed by Martin Luther King Jr., Morehouse’s most famous graduate.

The Hamas attack on southern Israel killed 1,200 people. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health officials in the territory.

In the end, there were no disruptions of Morehouse's commencement while applause for Biden mostly was subdued. At least seven graduates and one faculty member sat with their backs turned during Biden's address, and another student draped himself in a Palestinian flag. Protesters near the ceremony carried signs that said “Free Palestine,” “Save the Children'' and ”Ceasefire Now" as police on bikes kept watch.

On stage behind the president as he spoke, academics unfurled a Congolese flag. The African country has been mired in a civil war, and many racial justice advocates have called for greater attention to the conflict as well as American help in ending the violence.

During his speech, valedictorian DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, of Chicago, said it was his duty to speak on the war in Gaza and recognize that both Palestinians and Israelis have suffered.

“From the comfort of our homes, we watch an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children, while calling for the release of all hostages," he said. “It is my stance as a Morehouse man, nay as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.” Biden stood and shook Fletcher's hand afterward.

Graduate Kingsley John said, “the temperature on campus was expected given we had the president of the United States come and speak.” John said he stood "in solidarity" with his classmates and that Biden "seemed to be reflective and open to hear the feedback.”

Morehouse awarded Biden an honorary doctor of laws degree. After accepting the honor, he joked that, “I’m not going home” as chants of “four more years” broke out in the audience. Biden then flew to Detroit to address thousands attending the local NAACP chapter's annual Freedom Fund dinner.

Georgia and Michigan are among a handful of states that will help decide November's expected rematch between Biden and Trump. Biden narrowly won Georgia and Michigan in 2020 and he needs strong Black voter turnout in Atlanta and Detroit if he hopes to repeat in November.

Biden spent part of the past week reaching out to Black constituents. He highlighted key moments in the Civil Rights Movement, from the 70th anniversary of the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed racial segregation in public schools to the Little Rock Nine, who helped integrate a public school in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. He also met with members of the “Divine Nine” Black fraternities and sororities.

Before the NAACP speech in Detroit, Biden visited with supporters at CRED Cafe on the city's east side, which is partly owned by former NBA players Joe and Jordan Crawford.

The speech will give Biden a chance to reach thousands of people in Wayne County, which historically has voted overwhelmingly Democratic but has shown signs of resistance to his reelection bid.

The county also holds one of the largest Arab American populations in the nation, predominantly in the city of Dearborn. Leaders there were at the forefront of an “uncommitted” effort that received over 100,000 votes in the state’s Democratic primary and spread across the country.

A protest rally and march against Biden’s visit took place in Dearborn in the afternoon.

In Detroit, over 200 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside Huntington Place hours before Biden was set to speak there. Monitored by a large police presence, the protesters held flags and signs and chanted while marching back and forth in front of the event center. Dinner guests had to walk directly past the protesters to enter.

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan, and Colleen Long and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.