FTX creditor compensation begins, massive SOL unlock draws market attention

On February 18, 2025, the first round of creditor payments for FTX officially began, marking a critical stage in a bankruptcy liquidation that has lasted two years. However, the market's focus is on another potential risk: on March 1, 11.2 million SOL tokens from the FTX bankruptcy auction are set to be unlocked, valued at approximately $1.9 billion. Although the payments being settled in fiat currency seem to have limited impact, the expectation of large-scale circulation of SOL has raised market concerns that FTX's asset disposal could once again impact the crypto ecosystem. Is this an overextension of panic, or has the risk not been fully assessed?

The first round of compensation still has a huge amount unpaid.

According to public information, the creditors with a claim amount of $50,000 or less who will receive compensation in this round are referred to as initial beneficiaries. According to FTX's restructuring plan, these creditors will receive full repayment and will enjoy an annual interest rate of 9%, potentially resulting in a repayment of 119% in fiat currency.

FTX creditor Sunil stated that approximately $800 million has been paid in this round of repayments, covering 162,000 accounts, which accounts for 35% of the expected 460,000 eligible claims accounts. Payments exceeding $50,000 will need to wait until after May 30.

Previous reports indicate that the overall repayment plan for the first phase involves $6.5 to $7 billion. This round of repayments is expected to last until March 4. However, FTX has not yet disclosed the actual total repayment amount for the first round.

From a repayment perspective, since FTX chose to compensate in fiat currency, this may not cause significant fluctuations in the crypto market and could even bring some new capital inflows to the market.

Nearly $2 billion worth of SOL tokens are about to be unlocked

The market's concerns about FTX mainly stem from the auction of crypto assets such as Solana. Documents from 2023 show that FTX's total assets amounted to only $4.77 billion, a difference of $6.8 billion compared to the estimated payout amount of $11.5 billion at that time. With the arrival of the bull market in the crypto market in 2024, the crypto assets held by FTX have significantly appreciated.

Solana has become a major contributor to the appreciation of FTX's assets, with the SOL token experiencing a maximum increase of over 28 times since December 2022. As one of the main investors in Solana, FTX holds a large amount of locked SOL tokens. Monitoring data shows that as of February 17, FTX has sold 41 million SOL through three auctions, of which 11.2 million will be unlocked on March 1.

These tokens were not sold directly on the secondary market, but were purchased by several institutions at different prices. Overall, these transactions brought FTX $2.932 billion in revenue, making it the largest in its crypto asset liquidation.

The upcoming unlocked SOL tokens have completed the auction but will enter circulation after unlocking. Considering that the buyers' cost is much lower than the current market price, there is a possibility of profit-taking sales. However, this batch of unlocked SOL only accounts for 2.3% of the current circulating supply.

Progress on the Disposal of Other Crypto Assets

In March 2024, FTX sold its shares and token investments in Mysten Labs for $95 million. By the end of 2024, the maximum value of these assets had reached $4.6 billion. For the market, FTX no longer holds this portion of tokens, alleviating potential pressure on the SUI market.

Aptos is another key investment public chain project of FTX. In 2022, FTX Ventures participated in a $150 million financing round for Aptos. Currently, Aptos has not disclosed the final handling result of this equity. Data from March 2023 shows that FTX held 5 million APT tokens at that time, worth approximately $31.65 million based on the price on February 19.

As of February 19, the largest holding in the FTX on-chain addresses is the FTT token, with a total of 257 million tokens, valued at approximately $505 million. Considering that the total market capitalization of FTT is only $657 million, a large sell-off could significantly impact the price. FTX had previously allowed users to declare the purchase price of FTT, but this has not yet been included in the fiat compensation, and the compensation method for FTT holders remains unclear.

Documents disclosed in 2023 show that FTX also holds various mainstream crypto assets, including AVAX, BTC, ETH, and XRP. However, as of February 19, these assets are no longer visible in FTX's public wallet addresses and may have been sold off during the liquidation process. Currently, the holding value of FTX's on-chain addresses is approximately $1.269 billion.

As FTX begins to repay, this event is coming to an end. After more than two years of transformation, the cryptocurrency industry has entered a new stage of development, and FTX's impact on the industry is gradually becoming history. The recent market fluctuations triggered by FTX seem more like an overreaction to the current market turbulence or a manifestation of panic.