How FTX executives secretly spent $8 billion in customer money

The crypto exchange FTX went bust last year after executives spent billions in customer funds they had promised to safeguard.

- Alexander Saeecy

The tab was $7.7 billion, a Wall Street Journal analysis of company disclosures and legal filings shows. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and senior staff spent customer funds on technology investments, luxury real estate and political contributions, among other things.

The missing funds are at the heart of Bankman-Fried's criminal trial, which kicked off in Manhattan federal court this week. Top lieutenants of FTX and its sister company, Alameda Research, have pleaded guilty to fraud and looting customer funds.

Venture capital investments: over $5 billion

Much of the $5 billion-plus that FTX invested in tech companies was financed through misappropriated customer funds, according to lawsuits filed against senior executives.

Many deals haven't paid off. FTX bought the trading platform Embed for $236.8 million in September 2022, planning to use it to roll out stock trading for FTX customers, legal filings show. No buyers are willing to pay more than $1 million for the company now.

FTX has sued Embed's former shareholders, including Y Combinator and Bain Capital, to get the money back. Bankman-Fried invested $700 million of FTX money in the venture-capital firm K5 Global in 2022. K5's co-founders, Bryan Baum and the former Hollywood agent Michael Kives, each received $125 million payments as part of the deal, according to court filings.