Court Grants 3AC’s $1.53B Claim Against FTX, Paving the Way for Major Creditor Dispute

A Delaware bankruptcy court has approved Three Arrows Capital (3AC) to significantly increase its claim against FTX, adding further complexity to the ongoing creditor payout battle.

 Key Points:

• Three Arrows Capital (3AC)'s claim against FTX has surged from $120 million to $1.53 billion, further complicating the bankruptcy proceedings of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire.
• The FTX estate opposed the claim, arguing it was filed too late and could disrupt creditor distributions.
• 3AC alleges that FTX liquidated $1.53 billion of its assets just two weeks before 3AC collapsed.
• FTX defended the liquidation, claiming it was used to settle a $1.3 billion loan, but the court rejected this argument due to a lack of evidence.
• The court ruled in favor of 3AC, citing missing financial records and a lack of transparency from FTX.

The Delaware bankruptcy court overseeing the FTX estate has approved Three Arrows Capital (3AC)'s petition to increase its claim from $120 million to $1.53 billion, a significant turn in the ongoing legal battles stemming from the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire.

Three Arrows Capital (3AC), once a leading crypto hedge fund with over $3 billion in reported net assets, collapsed in 2022 while maintaining close financial ties to FTX, the crypto exchange that would soon face its own downfall.

In July 2023, 3AC initially filed a $120 million claim against FTX, joining the long list of creditors and investors impacted by the exchange’s sudden insolvency.

However, in November 2024, 3AC’s liquidators amended the claim after uncovering new evidence suggesting that FTX had liquidated $1.53 billion of 3AC’s assets just two weeks before 3AC began its own liquidation process in 2022.

3AC argued that FTX carried out the liquidation to cover a $1.3 billion debt supposedly owed by 3AC to FTX—a claim that 3AC’s liquidators contested, citing a lack of supporting evidence.

The Delaware bankruptcy court ruled in favor of Three Arrows Capital (3AC), rejecting FTX’s claim that a $1.3 billion liability represented collateral for a loan made to the hedge fund due to insufficient evidence.

This decision enables 3AC to seek a significantly larger share of FTX’s remaining assets, potentially reshaping creditor payouts.

FTX, which began creditor distributions in February 2025, argued that 3AC’s expanded claim was filed too late and would disrupt other creditor payments. However, the court sided with 3AC, determining that the delay was reasonable since liquidators only uncovered the full extent of their claim in mid-2024 due to missing financial records from FTX and a lack of cooperation from 3AC’s founders, Zhu Su and Kyle Davies.

Founded in 2012, 3AC grew into a major force in the crypto industry, but its 2022 collapse was one of the first major failures in the market downturn that ultimately exposed fraud within Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire.

Currently, Bankman-Fried is appealing his criminal conviction and 25-year prison sentence. Following 3AC’s collapse, Su was detained in Singapore and served four months in prison for failing to cooperate with liquidators, while Davies faced no charges.

In 2023, the 3AC founders launched OPNX, a crypto exchange for trading bankruptcy claims, but the platform was short-lived and shut down in February 2025.

With the court’s ruling, 3AC’s liquidators now hold a much larger stake in the FTX bankruptcy proceedings, raising concerns about how this expanded claim will affect payouts to other creditors.

The decision also highlights the lack of transparency at both FTX and 3AC, adding further complications to the ongoing efforts to untangle the financial obligations and assets of both collapsed firms.