FTX fires three of its top executives – WSJ

Nov 18 (Reuters) – Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which recently filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection, has fired three of its top executives, including co-founder Gary Wang, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing an FTX spokeswoman.

The other fired executives were engineering director Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison, who ran FTX̵[ads1]7;s trading arm Alameda Research, the paper said.

FTX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy protection last week, and former Wall Street trader Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO after rival exchange Binance walked away from a proposed acquisition. read more

The US bankruptcy proceedings involve several companies in the FTX group with more than 100,000, and possibly over 1 million, creditors.

According to interviews with several people close to Bankman-Fried and previously unreported company communications, the company had secretly risked customer funds to prop up a trading firm owned by Bankman-Fried, leading to the company’s collapse. read more

The company had come under some regulatory scrutiny through dozens of licenses it picked up through its many acquisitions. But that did not protect customers and investors, who now face losses totaling billions of dollars.

Several crypto firms have since braced themselves for the fallout from the FTX collapse, with many counting their exposure in the millions on the beleaguered exchange.

Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard, Rovert Birsel

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