- FTX's native token, FTT, surged 32% Thursday after the exchange's new boss floated the idea of reviving the company.
- John Ray III told the Wall Street Journal that all options are on the table in terms of how the bankrupt company will move forward.
FTT, the native token of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, rallied 32% Thursday following comments from the new chief executive that he's considering a restart amid bankruptcy proceedings.
John Ray III told the Wall Street Journal that he formed a working team to look at reviving the FTX.com international exchange.
A key question it's considering is whether resuming operations at the exchange would recover more value for customers versus liquidating the company.
"There are stakeholders we're working with who've identified what they see is a viable business," Ray said Thursday.
Hints at such a move came last week, when FTX's creditor committee attorneys warned that releasing the names of the exchange's 9 million customers could damage a "potential reboot,"
Meanwhile, even before the latest spike, FTT has been climbing for several days. It was trading at about $2.36 Thursday at 1:30 p.m. ET, which marks an increase of more than 160% from the all-time low of $0.82 in December, per CoinGecko data.
FTX invented and issued FTT tokens for users on the exchange to earn discounts on fees. The token has never reached zero despite FTX's tumult.
It was a key catalyst in FTX's collapse. On November 2, CoinDesk reported the native token made up a significant, unusual portion of the balance sheet for Bankman-Fried's trading firm, Alameda Research.
Then on November 6, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao took to Twitter to announce the sale of $530 million in FTT, which triggered roughly $6 billion in FTX withdrawals over the next 72 hours.
Bankman-Fried's entire empire eventually imploded, and FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, when Ray also took over as CEO.