Share this article
Hostaged FTX Funds Sold for Pennies on the Dollar in OTC Trades Among Customers
Troubled crypto exchange FTX halted withdrawals on Tuesday, leading panicked customers to offload their bags among themselves at steep discounts.
By Tracy Wang
Updated May 9, 2023, 4:02 a.m. Published Nov 9, 2022, 7:57 p.m.
Crypto traders with remaining funds on FTX are attempting to sell their account balances for fractions of their face value.
Telegram chats facilitating small over-the-counter (OTC) markets viewed by CoinDesk reveal buyers are bidding about 10 cents to 15 cents on the dollar for the locked-up funds, while sellers are generally looking to offload their balances at around 20 cents to 33 cents.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
“Size for sale @ ... $0.20,” read a Wednesday morning Tweet thread. “$0.15 in mid-size snap filled."
Another private Telegram messaged showed a seller asking to offload funds at “$100k block” minimums.
The steep discounts at which the FTX deposits are trading highlight the lack of customer confidence over a rapid full recovery. The messages also provide an approximate estimate for the fair value of a dollar currently held in limbo at FTX.
The international portion of the exchange, FTX.com, halted all crypto withdrawals on Tuesday after a run led to slow withdrawal processing times.
Upon announcing the Binance bailout, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tweeted that “all assets will be covered 1:1” under the preliminary purchase agreement.
However, CoinDesk reported earlier Wednesday that Binance was “strongly leaning toward scrapping" the FTX rescue after preliminary due diligence.
current bid/ask on ftx accounts pic.twitter.com/sWUFM1MEzH
— CL (@CL207) November 9, 2022
More For You
What to know:
- As of October 2025, GoPlus has generated $4.7M in total revenue across its product lines. The GoPlus App is the primary revenue driver, contributing $2.5M (approx. 53%), followed by the SafeToken Protocol at $1.7M.
- GoPlus Intelligence's Token Security API averaged 717 million monthly calls year-to-date in 2025 , with a peak of nearly 1 billion calls in February 2025. Total blockchain-level requests, including transaction simulations, averaged an additional 350 million per month.
- Since its January 2025 launch , the $GPS token has registered over $5B in total spot volume and $10B in derivatives volume in 2025. Monthly spot volume peaked in March 2025 at over $1.1B , while derivatives volume peaked the same month at over $4B.
More For You
North Korean hackers stole a record $2 billion of crypto in 2025, Chainalysis says
North Korea-linked hackers drove a record year for crypto thefts, favoring rare but massive attacks on centralized services, led by Bybit’s $1.4 billion breach.
What to know:
- North Korean hackers stole at least $2 billion in 2025, up 51% from the year before, pushing their all-time haul to $6.75 billion.
- The hackers were behind 76% of service-level hacks, reflecting a shift toward fewer, larger breaches.
- Laundering patterns show heavy use of Chinese-language brokers, bridges and mixers, with a typical 45-day cash-out window.
Top Stories
