The Secret Story of FTX’s Rise and Ruin Part 2

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

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4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 October 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When the cryptocurrency exchange FTX imploded, customers around the world lost access to their money. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud and sent to prison. But the story didn’t stop there. For the past three years, FTX has been in bankruptcy, a legal process that determines who will be paid back and how much they’ll receive.

From the start, some customers and FTX insiders have criticized the bankruptcy. Legal experts and a bipartisan group of senators objected to the law firm tapped to run it, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest. But the bankruptcy court and an independent examiner signed off on the firm’s appointment as lead counsel.

This year, customers are receiving compensation for their losses, but many say they’re being shortchanged. Instead of being paid in cryptocurrency, they’re receiving cash, with their claims pegged to the value of crypto when the market was at an all-time low.

“Under this plan, my contractual rights and my ownership rights have been trampled; my property rights have been disregarded,” says Lidia Favario, an Italian artist who argued in court that customers should be repaid in crypto, not cash.

This week on Reveal, in the second part of our series on FTX, we examine the decisions that shaped what’s become one of the most expensive bankruptcies in US history.

Read the FTX bankruptcy estate’s on-the-record statement to Reveal.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, this is Al, and I'm sure it is no surprise to you that President Trump doesn't like us very much.
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0:57.6	Just visit revealnews.org slash fearless. Again, that's revealnews.org slash fearless.
1:04.9	Thanks. From the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Ledson.
1:12.1	What does FDX stand for? Oh, God, futures exchange. The F and the T, both from the word
1:18.3	futures. That's FTC's founder Sam Bankman-Fried in an interview with Reveals Jonathan Jones.
1:25.2	Sam started the crypto exchange in 2019 and watched it turn into a huge success.
1:30.6	They called them the JP Morgan of crypto, right?
1:34.8	Yeah, the Michael Jordan of crypto, if you will.
1:39.5	By 2022, millions of customers were trading billions of dollars in crypto through FTX.
1:45.0	But behind the scenes, people who worked for Sam were seeing signs of trouble.
1:50.0	Did you have moments where you felt he played a little too loose with the rules?
1:55.0	Probably. Yeah. I mean, I think it was, wow, we're moving really fast.
	...

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