FTX says it has recovered $5 billion in assets, greatly increasing the amount the failed crypto exchange has hunted down to pay back creditors

• FTX said Wednesday it has now located more than $5 billion in assets as part of its work toward repaying creditors.
• The failed crypto exchange had previously located more than $1 billion in assets.

FTX has recovered more than $5 billion in various assets, substantially increasing the amount identified by new executives as the failed crypto exchange works to repay creditors.

The assets include cash, liquid cryptocurrency, and liquid investment securities, FTX's lead attorney Adam Landis said at a judicial hearing Wednesday as part of the company's bankruptcy proceedings.

The $5 billion figure is higher than the more than $1 billion in assets executives said in December they had tracked down.

The new amount doesn't ascribe any value to holdings of dozens of illiquid cryptocurrency tokens, Landis said. Such holdings "are so large relative to the total supply that our positions cannot be sold without substantially affecting the market for the token," he said.

The new figure also doesn't include $425 million held by the securities regulator in the Bahamas, where FTX was based.

Despite finding more assets, FTX still has a large hole to fill. FTX in a November filing indicated it owed nearly $3.1 billion to 50 of its largest FTX's largest creditors, but the total number of creditors tops 1 million and the overall shortfall in assets is seen at several billions of dollars.

FTX also said Wednesday it has identified more than 9 million customer accounts with about 120 billion associated transactions and that it's trying to recreate petition date claim values for every customer.

"We are building financial statements from the ground up using the general ledger and bank transaction records rather than the previous incomplete and unreliable financial statements of the debtors," Landis said. "This will put us in a position to describe the financial results of the debtors accurately for the first time."

The now-defunct exchange said it has started a strategic review process for its assets in establishing "data rooms" and soliciting interest for four operating subsidiaries, Landis said. Court documents reviewed by Insider showed 117 parties have expressed an interest in buying at least one of the four FTX businesses.

"We also are well underway on plans to monetize over 300 other nonstrategic investments, with a book value of over $4.6 billion," Landis said.

Wednesday's hearing took place two months after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US in the wake of allegations of misuse of customer funds and a surge in withdrawals. FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is currently facing eight criminal charges, including conspiracy to defraud the US and violate campaign finance laws. He pleaded not guilty earlier this month.

FTX on Monday released a list of its top equity holders who have likely seen their stakes wiped out, including high-profile names like NFL legend Tom Brady, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and model Gisele Bündchen.