The troubled platform's new CEO said it was hit by "unauthorized transactions," fueling rumors of a cyberattack or insider theft. FTX filed for bankruptcy protection after a crypto equivalent of a bank run. FTX, the world's second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Saturday said it was probing a possible hacking attack, a day after it collapsed when traders rushed to withdraw billions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that more than $500 million (€482 million) of crypto funds appear to be missing, citing crypto analytics firm Elliptic Enterprises who said the funds had been moved out from the platform in "suspicious circumstances." The potential hack took place just after FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, the company's general counsel Ryne Miller said in a tweet. Digital assets moved offline Miller added that the company took "precautionary steps to move all digital assets to cold storage... to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorized transactions." Cold storage refers to moving cryptocurrency assets to hardware unconnected to the internet, to ensure its security.  John Ray, who was appointed on Friday as Chief Restructuring Officer and CEO of FTX following the removal of founder Sam Bankman-Fried, said "unauthorized access to certain assets has occurred." He said in a statement that an "active fact review and mitigation exercise was initiated immediately in response." Ray added that FTX was coordinating with law enforcement and regulators and would "continue to make every effort to secure all assets, wherever located." WSJ reported that a rival crypto exchange, Kraken, said it knew the identity of the alleged hacker and would pass details to authorities. FTX founder denies fleeing to South America Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, has denied rumors that he has flown by private jet to South America, telling the Reuters news agency he remains in the Bahamas, where he lives. The 30-year-old founder, known for his shorts and T-shirt attire, has morphed from being the poster child of crypto's successes to the protagonist of the industry's biggest crash. Until 10 days ago, FTX had a valuation of some $32 billion but suffered a series of shocking setbacks firstly when media reports revealed that its Alameda Research trading house was involved in a risky financial arrangement that appeared to involve serious conflicts of interest.  Financial media reported that FTX executives knew the platform was using billions in customer funds to prop up Alameda. Binance U-turn helped seal FTX's fate Adding to its woes was the move by larger rival Binance to seek to purchase FTX.com on Tuesday before retracting its offer a day later due to the state of the firm.  In its bankruptcy petition, FTX Trading said it has $10 billion to $50 billion in assets, $10 billion to $50 billion in liabilities, and more than 100,000 creditors. The collapse shocked investors and prompted fresh calls to regulate the crypto asset sector, which has seen losses stack up this year as cryptocurrency prices collapsed. FTX is being investigated by both the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to the New York Times.

Rescue teams combed through the rubble of an oceanfront apartment block near Miami Beach that partially collapsed Thursday, killing at least one person and leaving another 99 unaccounted for amid fears of a much higher death toll. An unknown number of residents are feared to have been asleep in the 12-story building, in the town of Surfside, when the collapse in the wee hours of Thursday morning reduced a large portion of it to a pile of debris, exposing the interiors of gutted apartments. "One side of the building just fell completely. It doesn't exist anymore," said Nicolas Fernandez, 29, an Argentinian resident of Miami who had yet to hear from friends who were staying overnight in his family's unit in the building. "I don't know about them. I don't know if they are alive," he told AFP. Authorities said they were still without news of 99 people who may have been inside the building when part of it came crashing down. So far 102 others have been accounted for, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said. Search and rescue teams with sniffer dogs will work through the night, Levine Cava said. "As the day comes to an end, their day does not," she said at an evening news conference, the last until Friday morning. At a Surfside community center, relatives of the missing cried as they waited for news. Tenants of the ruined building who were lucky enough to have been away when disaster struck pondered sudden homelessness. Erick de Moura, 40, happened to spend Wednesday night at his girlfriend's house. "I just came back and the scene is shocking," he said. "There is a lot of pain. I'm blessed that I am alive." Around 55 apartments were affected by the collapse, according to Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Ray Jadallah who told a news conference that emergency services arrived at the scene at around 1:30 am, evacuating 35 people from the building. The building was occupied by a mix of full-time and seasonal residents and renters, and officials have stressed it is unclear how many people were actually inside at the time. "It's hard to get a count on it," Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman told CNN. "You don't know between vacations or anything else," she said. "The hope is still there, but it's waning." - 'Bracing for bad news' - Some residents were able to walk down the stairs to safety while others had to be rescued from their balconies. One death was confirmed by Surfside mayor Charles Burkett, and Heyman said some 14 survivors had been recovered from the rubble. "It's a really, really tragic situation so we'll hope for the best in terms of additional recoveries, but we are bracing for some bad news just given the destruction that we're seeing," Governor Rob DeSantis told a news conference. As hope receded of finding more survivors, the focus was on the recovery of possible victims amid the rubble, in a massive operation assisted by drones and dogs and involving dozens of police and firefighter units. "Apparently when the building came down it pancaked, so there's just not a lot of voids that they're finding or seeing from the outside," Burkett said on NBC's Today show. After speaking with mayor Levine Cava, President Joe Biden told reporters his administrationstood ready to send emergency resources to Florida "immediately" if requested. "I say to the people of Florida, whatever help you want, that the federal government can provide, just ask us, we'll be there," he said. - 'Like a bomb went off' - Surfside's mayor said the reasons for the collapse were still unclear. "It looks like a bomb went off, but we're pretty sure a bomb didn't go off, so it's something else," Burkett said. Fernandez, the Argentinian resident of Miami, said that when his mother called him in the early hours to say the building had collapsed, he thought it was a joke -- and hung up. "She calls me again and tells me: 'Nico, you know I would never joke about this. I need you to go over there.' We came running." One witness, 25-year-old Julian Targowski, described the sound of the collapse. "It was like a very bass-y, like boom boom, boom boom, that kind of thing," he told local television WFOR. "Like, a ton of bass on a subwoofer, basically, like just two of them," he said. "Then my friend texted me that a building had exploded." Local media said records showed the block was built in 1981 and had more than 130 units inside. Heyman told CNN the building had been undergoing construction work on its roof, although she also stressed the reasons for the collapse were not clear Source: AFP/BSS AH

About 70 people were trapped on Saturday after a hotel being used for coronavirus quarantine collapsed in the Chinese city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province, the city’s authority said on its website. Video posted online showed orange-clad rescue workers clambering over mounds of rubble. It was not clear how tall the building had been before it collapsed, but there appeared to be commercial properties at street level. The building collapsed at about 7:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) and 34 people were rescued in the following two hours, the Quanzhou authorities said. The official People’s Daily said the hotel had opened in June 2018 with 80 rooms and was being used to quarantine people during the coronavirus outbreak. The Fujian provincial government said that as of Friday, the province had 296 cases of coronavirus and 10,819 people had been placed under observation after being classified as suspected close contacts. Source: Reuters AH