Bankruptcy Filing Reveals Tom Brady, Kevin O’Leary, and Coinbase Among Major FTX Equity Holders

By Jason Nelson

Football star Tom Brady, companies under the control of New England Patriots Robert Kraft, and crypto firms Blackrock, Coinbase, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Pantera Ventures, and Tezos Foundation are among the names included in documents filed in Delaware bankruptcy court as holders of FTX stock.

According to the filings, Brady held 1,144,861 in common stock, while supermodel, businesswoman, and Brady's ex-wife Gisele Bündchen had 686,761. The former couple at one time served as ambassadors for FTX after taking equity stakes in the company in June 2021.

The Kraft Group, through KPC Venture Capital, held 634,144 in common and preferred stock, and rival cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase held 5,284,899 in common and preferred stock.

It is difficult to estimate a dollar value for the shares, as FTX catastrophically collapsed before going public.

FTX has used its native FTT token to make business acquisitions, including the 2020 purchase of crypto portfolio company Blockfolio. At the time, the acquisition was valued at $150 million and said to have been made with a mixture of cash, crypto, and equity.

In reality, 94% percent of the deal was funded using FTT.

On November 6, 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao posted on Twitter that the exchange would liquidate its entire FTT position, effectively gutting FTX, which filed for bankruptcy protection less than a week later.

The common and preferred stock listings represent a more conventional corporate ownership model that will no longer come to fruition.

Before its collapse, FTX boasted an impressive list of celebrities and athletes as ambassadors and spokespeople, including Brady, Bundchen, Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, and Golden State Warriors' Steph Curry.

While Curry and his SC30 company do not appear in the Delaware filings, O'Leary's company, O'Leary Productions, held 184,061 in common and preferred FTX stock.

Speaking at the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing in December, the celebrity businessman called Binance a "massive, unregulated monopoly," alleging that Binance purposely caused FTX to collapse.

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