Locals say they are having to contend with vacant apartments and the loss of job opportunities once provided by the collapsed exchange, FTX.
Bahamians are reportedly still attempting to make sense of everything after the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which had its headquarters on the island nation of Bahamas. Despite this, they are said to be optimistic about the future.
The implosion of FTX has reportedly rocked the island nation, which had encouraged cryptocurrency companies to feel at home with their “copacetic regulatory touch,” according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The Bahamas, whose economy is largely dependent on offshore banking and tourism for the majority of its gross domestic product, was already struggling to find ways to strengthen it when Hurricane Dorian and the pandemic struck hard in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
It appeared that the Bahamas’ prime minister, Philip Davis, and his administration thought that cryptocurrency could be extremely important to the island’s economic recovery.
The locals now claim that FTX’s abrupt collapse has left a path of jobless on the tiny, 80-square-mile island. FTX reportedly spent more than “$100,000 a week on catering” when it was operating at full capacity, and it also established a private shuttle service to transport employees around the island.
According to the WSJ, FTX also employed a number of native Bahamians in positions related to logistics, event planning, and regulatory compliance. Many high-spending foreigners who worked for FTX and once helped the local economy have reportedly left the island as a result of the company’s collapse, leaving Bahamian security guards to now watch over “nearly vacant buildings.”
In the aftermath of the fall of FTX, some crypto community members have said they feel no sympathy for the effects of the collapse on the tiny island country.
Hacker News user Matkoniecz commented, “Given that Bahamas help rich people and companies to evade taxes, my sympathy to negative consequences of that are limited.”
Meanwhile, Exendroinient00 shared, “Nothing wrong with inviting every scammer to do scamming on your islands,” likely in reference to the island’s laws that seem to incentivize offshore banking activities.
FTX’s digital assets were reportedly to be transferred to a wallet owned by the commission on October 18 “for safekeeping,” according to a report from the Bahamas’ securities regulator.
Financial investigators and Bahamian securities regulators are looking into potential criminal activity related to FTX’s insolvency, according to a statement from the Royal Bahamas Police Force sent to Reuters on Nov. 13.
