Bitfinex publishes details of reserves after rival FTX files for bankruptcy protection

Quick Take

  • Bitfinex published details of its reserves on Friday, including $3.4 billion in bitcoin and $1.5 billion in ether.
  • It joins rivals including Binance and OKX in increasing transparency following FTX’s high-profile implosion.

Bitfinex published details of its reserves on Friday, joining a stream of centralized crypto exchanges increasing their transparency following FTX's high-profile implosion. 

The exchange's holdings include 204,338 BTC ($3.4 billion) and 1.2 million ETH ($1.5 billion), according to a Twitter post from Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino. The tweet linked to a list of 135 wallet addresses hosted on GitHub. 

"Bitfinex also developed in the past an opensource library called Antani," Ardoino tweeted. "We plan to revive it and have a way for users to cryptographically verify their balances respecting their privacy."

The crypto industry was thrown into turmoil this week as FTX's finances unravelled over the course of a few hectic days, fueled by concern over the exchange's ties with sister trading firm Alameda Research. Binance, the world's biggest crypto exchange, offered to buy its struggling rival's assets on Tuesday, before walking away a day later after examining FTX's finances. 

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Several crypto exchanges decided to offer more details on their reserves as FTX teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, before succumbing on Friday. Bitfinex joins Binance, OKX, Crypto.com, Kucoin and Bybit in promising more transparency in bids to boost user confidence. 

Still, reserves only provide part of the picture of an exchange's financial health, as they say nothing about a company's liabilities. 

The crypto market stress briefly caused tether, the stablecoin operated by another Ardoino company, to drop below its peg to the U.S. dollar this week. 


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About Author

Andrew Rummer is executive editor for The Block Pro, based in London. He was previously managing editor at Bloomberg News and led special projects at Finimize. He has a degree in engineering from the University of Oxford. Follow him on Twitter at @AJRummer.

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