Meet the Metaverse Nightclub–Loving Audit Agency That Presided Over FTX’s Financials

Crypto trade FTX filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety on Friday with an eleven-figure gap in its books. As observers remarked on the speedy deterioration of then-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s buying and selling empire, a pure query emerged: Who was FTX’s auditor?

FTX Buying and selling LLC, the trade’s worldwide arm, labored with auditing agency Prager Metis, in accordance with monetary statements seen Friday by CoinDesk. The mid-sized agency lists 24 working places on its web site, together with the “metaverse.”

A now-deleted put up on the corporate’s web site, revealed in June 2022 stated Prager Metis was “proud to help FTX US.” (The web page was nonetheless viewable in Google’s search cache.)

The 2020 and 2021 FTX US audits had been carried out by New York Metropolis-based agency Armanino, in accordance with paperwork considered by CoinDesk.

A cursory web search reveals Prager Metis gives tax, auditing and advisory providers, notably to the leisure and music industries, although it has no purchasers named on its web site. It additionally surfaces extra spicy fare: The corporate introduced plans to open an workplace within the Decentraland metaverse in February 2022, and can sponsor an upcoming metaverse get together for the scantily clad Decentraland Babydolls.

On its web site, FTX stated it had efficiently undergone a U.S. GAAP monetary audit for 2021.

As FTX bumped into bother this week, many critics pointed to FTX’s opaque enterprise operations and the way a scarcity of oversight might have allowed Bankman-Fried and his inside circle of executives to hide presumably fraudulent conduct.

“I don’t know something about FTX,” stated Jerry Eitel, the associate emeritus and chief metaverse officer at Prager Metis. “I’m retired,” Eitel added, earlier than disconnecting on the cellphone. (Eitel is a one-time CoinDesk contributor.)The top of Prager Metis’ audit observe couldn’t be reached for remark.

Enterprise capital big Sequoia, which wrote off the whole thing of its $150 million funding in FTX this week, justified its funding within the firm by citing FTX’s robust 2021 financials. The enterprise fund touted FTX’s $1 billion in revenues and $250 million in working revenue as proof of the corporate’s legitimacy, each figures CoinDesk’s leaked Prager Metis experiences corroborate.

Story continues

“On the time of our funding in FTX, we ran a rigorous diligence course of,” the group wrote in a letter to traders.

Spokespeople for FTX and FTX US didn’t reply to a request for remark. The folks didn’t reply when requested if the agency, M Group Strategic Communications, was nonetheless representing the corporate.

Further reporting by CoinDesk’s Ian Allison.

UPDATE (21:25 UTC): Updates textual content in third paragraph and provides image displaying what accounting agency’s FTX web site seemed like earlier than it was deleted.