AAX (Atom Asset Exchange) collapse — what creditors were owed and recovered (2022)

Atom Asset Exchange, trading as AAX, was a cryptocurrency exchange launched in 2019 and run from Hong Kong through a group whose holding company, Atom Holdings, was incorporated in the Cayman Islands; most customers contracted with Seychelles-registered AAX Limited. On 13 November 2022, days after FTX collapsed, AAX suspended withdrawals and blamed a failed system upgrade. Withdrawals never reopened.

Two retail investors, one Singaporean and one German, petitioned to wind up Atom Holdings as contingent creditors. On 8 March 2023 the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands appointed Angela Barkhouse and Kim Leck of Quantuma (Cayman) as joint provisional liquidators, dispensing with the usual cross-undertaking in damages so that retail creditors could obtain interim relief. The court made a winding-up order on 7 July 2023 in FSD 54 of 2023 and confirmed the pair as joint official liquidators. The US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida recognised the proceedings under Chapter 15 on 29 June 2023, and Quantuma's Luke Furler was appointed over the Singapore entities. Kroll Issuer Services administers creditor claims.

No schedule of total customer liabilities has been published. The court record states that a former director is alleged to have absconded with private keys to wallets holding at least US$30 million of user assets and probably more; that floor is the figure recorded here. Hong Kong police had received 337 complaints reporting HK$98 million of losses by 24 December 2022, and by 2024 described an outflow of about HK$633 million. The exchange claimed two to three million users.