Users affected by FTX’s 2022 crash will begin receiving bankruptcy distributions, with the option to receive payouts in stablecoins, through Kraken and BitGo.

The FTX estate confirmed that its bankruptcy disbursement plan will become effective on January 3, 2025, following court approval by U.S. District Judge John Dorsey in October.

Sunil Kavuri, a spokesperson for FTX’s largest creditor group, identified Kraken and BitGo as the confirmed distribution partners, citing the platforms’ payment capabilities. According to Kavuri, customers will have the option to receive repayments in stablecoins.

The plan, ruled by Judge Dorsey in Delaware, approved 98% of creditors to receive 118% of their claim value in early October. FTX’s decision to repay users in cash drew criticism from Kavuri and other bankruptcy claimants.

Yet, court documents showed that 94% of creditors with claims against the crypto exchange voted “Yes” to the plan. This group comprises nearly $7 billion in claims, according to the reorganization plan.

Bankruptcy administrator John J. Ray III commended his interim team for recovering about $16 billion in assets and cash for FTX creditors. Ray took over as CEO in late 2022, replacing Sam Bankman-Fried. Companies under the FTX umbrella, such as Alameda Research, also collapsed, and several of Bankman-Fried’s top associates signed plea deals with federal prosecutors in exchange for lighter sentences.

By November 2023, Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud. Under CEO Ray’s leadership, the defunct crypto exchange has worked to reconstruct the remnants of Bankman-Fried’s one-time crypto empire.

For the past two years, our team of professionals have meticulously and efficiently worked to recover billions of dollars to reach this point. The Plan becoming effective in January 2025 and the start of distributions are reflections of the outstanding success of the recovery efforts.

John J. Ray III, FTX CEO

BitGo has selected LayerZero as the digital asset custody provider’s official interoperability provider for the Wrapped Bitcoin token.

On Sept. 10, LayerZero (ZRO) announced that BitGo now uses LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token standard for the crypto company’s Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). Projects that already tap into OFT are Swell, Ethena and EtherFi among others.

BitGo expands WBTC to BNB Chain and Avalanche

BitGo and its partners launched Wrapped Bitcoin in 2019 with the goal of bringing Bitcoin (BTC) into the DeFi ecosystem on Ethereum (ETH). BTC holders can use WBTC to access decentralized finance applications across lending, borrowing, swapping, and other services.

BitGo’s selection of LayerZero comes as the firm expands its WBTC token, a major asset in the decentralized finance space, to two more blockchain networks—Avalanche (AVAX) and BNB Chain.

WBTC is already available on Ethereum, Tron, Base, Osmosis, and other networks. The latest integrations, BNB Chain and Avalanche, rank as the fourth and seventh largest chains by total value locked respectively as seen on DeFiLlama.

Native WBTC minting

According to LayerZero, BitGo’s choice of the OFT Standard for WBTC allows for the token’s native use and transfer across multiple blockchains.

Users will be able to mint WBTC natively on the supported chains without facing the risks associated with token bridging from Ethereum. Apart from omnichain composability, other benefits of using LayerZero for WBTC interoperability include unified supply and modular security.

As part of the collaboration with LayerZero, BitGo will implement its own decentralized verifier network, which will play a key role in ensuring that every omnichain WBTC transaction is verified. BitGo will collaborate with Polyhedra and LayerZero Labs on the DVN.

California-based digital asset trust and security company BitGo has received a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

The company made the announcement on Aug. 8, stating that the MPI license allows it to offer regulated crypto payment services in Singapore, including custody and trading.

Following the approval, BitGo’s Singapore clients will be able to buy and sell crypto from the company’s cold storage custody solutions. Additionally, according to BitGo, the services will include access to its liquidity as well as insured cold storage custody solutions.

BitGo’s acquisition of the MPI license comes only days after HashKey Group’s over-the-counter trading subsidiary received similar approval from the Singapore regulator. It also comes about six months after BitGo obtained an initial in-principle approval as an MPI. 

The crypto custodian now joins 27 other digital asset companies, including Coinbase and Ripple (XRP), which have already secured full MPI licenses to offer crypto services in the city state.

Singapore has tried to build a strong regulatory framework for crypto, primarily overseen by MAS. They include the enactment of the Payment Services Act in 2019, as well as rules restricting digital payment providers from promoting their services to the general public. 

Crypto ownership in the tiny Asian country is one of the highest in the world. According to a recent report from global crypto payments provider Triple-A, more than 24% of Singaporeans owned some form of crypto. It puts the country only second to the United Arab Emirates in terms of crypto ownership, with 25.3% of the Middle-Eastern country’s citizenry holding crypto.

Per the report, the United States is much further behind, with only 15.5% of its population holding digital assets. However, unlike Singapore, crypto regulation in the U.S. is still not as clear cut, with the country’s regulator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused of hampering the growth of the industry through its hard stance on crypto.