Major Media Outlets Seek Release of 9 Million FTX Customer

The court overseeing the bankruptcy case of FTX has been asked by major news organizations such as The New York Times, The Financial Times, and Bloomberg to provide them with a list that includes the names of millions of FTX consumers.

There are around 9 million FTX clients and creditors whose money was lost as a result of the exchange’s decision to file for bankruptcy in November of the previous year. The names of these individuals are contained on the lists that the media outlets are requesting access to.

And even though it is generally a good thing for any judicial procedure to have openness, the petition that was submitted to the court has caused some people in the cryptocurrency industry to raise their eyebrows due to the possibility that customers could become targets for scammers.

Recent events have led to a rise in the popularity of so-called “pig butchering” scams, which are also known as “sha zhu pan” in Chinese. This has made people more worried that scammers could use information about clients.

“Pig butchering” is among the most sophisticated sorts of cons that are now in use. This con involves the victim being manipulated over a prolonged period of time in order to coerce them into handing over sensitive financial information.

And as a result of the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it is currently much simpler to carry out the con on a far larger scale than it was in the past.

Customer data has been kept sealed.

Due to the potential for fraud, the bankruptcy court overseeing the FTX case has, up to this point, maintained the confidentiality of the list of clients.

Now, however, a 90-days deadline for renewing the seal is pending. The big media sites are keen to get the names released, stating in a recent petition that “there is no legal basis for giving cryptocurrency users the ability to participate in bankruptcy proceedings anonymously.” The time for renewing the seal is coming up soon.

Crypto users are uniquely vulnerable.

When their personal information is made public, cryptocurrency users are more susceptible to being taken advantage of than members of other demographic groups, according to representatives of FTX who participated in previous hearings.

The representatives have also made it abundantly evident that the proliferation of AI tools such as ChatGPT makes long-term scams such as the “pig butchering” method significantly more effective while at the same time drawing attention to the fact that consumers of a cryptocurrency lender that has since gone bankrupt have already been targeted by scammers.

However, the media sites that want to access the customer names claimed before the court that cryptocurrency users should not be afforded any further security from the prying eyes of the general public.

“Regardless of these scam attempts, the record contains no evidence that any individuals named in the Celsius litigation have fallen victim to theft, either of their identities or their cryptocurrency assets,” the three media outlets stated in their filing. “This is because the record contains no evidence that any individuals named in the Celsius litigation have fallen victim to theft.”

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