The fate of 169 FTX non-fungible tokens now rests in the hands of the company’s bankruptcy estate, which may soon sell or auction the NFTs to pay off creditors. Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, broke the news on Twitter that the NFTs were transferred to wallet address rumored to belong to Alameda’s liquidator:
According to Dune Analytics, the 169 NFTs have a value of around $3.6 million. Among them are 32 Bored Apes, seven Azuki, and 81 Sandbox LAND. For a complete look at the NFTs, check out the table below:
| NFT Collection | # of NFTs | Estimated Value |
| Bored Ape Yacht Club | 32 | $3 million |
| Azuki | 7 | $265,600 |
| Otherdeed | 29 | $137,300 |
| The Sandbox LAND | 81 | $77,700 |
| HAPE PRIME | 6 | $65,800 |
| Mutant Ape Yacht Club | 2 | $45,200 |
| BEANZ | 12 | $34,200 |
Included in the Bored Ape collection are three grail gold-fur Apes that may have fetched over $1 million apiece in the bull market. Liquidators face a challenge in selling the NFTs, as the market has taken a downward turn in recent months, lowering floor prices and crunching liquidity.
Instead of selling the NFTs directly, the liquidators may choose to auction the NFTs, which could result in higher sales. The team handling the bankruptcy of Three Arrows Capital (3AC) chose that route, collaborating with famed auction house Sotheby’s to auction off some of 3AC’s top non-fungible tokens, including some CryptoPunks and Ringers.
If the liquidation of FTX’s NFT collection succeeds, the money could eventually be used to help reimburse FTX’s creditors, which in this case, were its users. The proceeds, however, would be a drop in the bucket, as FTX once owed $8.3 billion to its customers as late as January of 2023.
FTX’s NFT Saga Continues
As Grogan shared in his thread on Twitter, FTX bought most of the NFTs in its collection during late 2021, when the bull market was in full swing. In fact, the Bored Apes it purchased were used to lure people to use the newly launched FTX NFT marketplace — as the company listed some of the Apes on its market below the floor prices on other sites.
Soon, the FTX NFT marketplace had a series of high-profile partners, including Coachella, Formula One, Tomorrowland, and Steph Curry, all who launched non-fungible token collections on the marketplace. Fans bought in, only to find their NFTs stuck on the website when FTX filed for bankruptcy. Even some who transferred their NFTs out to non-custodial wallets found the images broken.
Angry customers flooded Discord servers, asking community leaders and customer service representatives how they could get their NFTs, some of which they had paid thousands of dollars for. It was another black eye in the FTX saga, which hurt all users of the platform, not just those who traded cryptocurrency.
However, the latest news from the FTX bankruptcy team gives a glimmer of hope: It is exploring a relaunch of the company, as they have recovered $7.3 billion in cash at last count. If it reopens, users may be able to withdraw their funds — and NFT holders will have the opportunity to recover their assets. That would be a win-win for all involved.
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