Bahamas Securities Commission issues statement that they didn't instruct FTX to process withdrawals for Bahamian customers

The Securities Commission of the Bahamas issued a statement saying that "The Commission wishes to advise that it has not directed, authorized or suggested to [FTX] the prioritization of withdrawals for Bahamian clients."

This contradicted FTX's previous statement that "Per our Bahamian HQ's regulation and regulators, we have begun to facilitate withdrawals of Bahamian funds." The announcement that they would be processing withdrawals for Bahamian customers led to a slew of non-Bahamian customers trying to find ways to withdraw their funds via bribes and shady NFT deals.

Some have viewed FTX's choice to enable Bahamian withdrawals as evidence that they were trying to allow FTX employees and family members to get access to their funds on the exchange, even when most customers had no such access.