More than 30 Canadian businesses are counted among an extensive list of potential creditors to FTX, bankruptcy documents show, in yet another example of the collapsed cryptocurrency giant’s sprawling reach.

A 116-page document that lawyers for FTX filed to the U.S. bankruptcy court for Delaware last month lists 36 Canadian entities and businesses, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan; three well-known tech companies; two white-shoe law firms; the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation; a handful of Canadian small- and medium-sized businesses; two gaming influencers, Air Canada and former “Dragons’ Den” star Kevin O’Leary. It also lists the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Ontario Securities Commission and the federal Minister of Justice.

The broad list of thousands of potential creditors around the world also includes tech heavyweights Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Netflix, rival crypto firm Binance, Bloomberg Finance, The New York Times and a handful of global government agencies. 

FTX, its hedge fund arm Alameda Research and approximately 130 affiliated companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-November.

The bankruptcy court documents don’t reveal the nature or size of debts, if any, while the listed parties’ relationships with Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt firm is unclear. In a later Jan. 26 filing, lawyers for the exchange clarified that being included on the matrix “does not necessarily indicate that the party is a creditor of any of the debtors.”

David Bish, a partner at Torys LLP and head of the firm’s corporate restructuring and advisory practice, told The Logic in an interview that a company’s creditor matrix would include all entities that it has done business with, had an investment relationship with, been sued by or thinks it could be sued by.

“[The creditor matrix] is essentially their best guess as to who out there might have claims or ownership interests against the company,” Bish said.

Bish said a creditor matrix—which is compiled with the help of company employees and advisors—are broad to the point of being overly inclusive to ensure against accidentally leaving out a creditor with a legitimate claim.

“Just because you put someone on this list doesn’t mean it’s an admission they have a claim. You’re really just identifying who might have a claim for the purpose of giving them notice,” he said, adding that “when you actually see who has proven claims, it’ll be a shorter list.” 

Broadening out the creditors’ list also protects against companies with poor record-keeping, Bish said. John J. Ray III, a veteran corporate restructuring professional who was appointed FTX’s new CEO after the exchange collapsed, testified during a U.S. House of Representatives committee in December that the exchange had “no record-keeping whatsoever.”  

Some listed Canadian creditors have well-publicized ties to the exchange. The OTPP had invested US$75 million in FTX International and FTX US in October 2021, and a subsequent US$20 million in January 2022 through its Teachers’ Venture Growth platform for emerging technology companies raising late-stage growth capital. In November, Teachers’ wrote down its investment to $0. 

O’Leary, who was included on the list multiple times through his production company, the talent agency that represents him and through a numbered company he controls, told The Logic that he’d lost all of the US$18 million that FTX had paid him to be an ambassador for the company. Just under US$10 million of the funds were put into his FTX account, which he said was later “stolen or scraped. Nobody knows yet what happened, it was wiped out.” As part of the deal O’Leary took a US$1.25-million equity stake in FTX International and FTX US, which he also lost. Some money went to agent fees and taxes. 

O’Leary said the company re-opened a closed funding round to allow him to take an equity stake in the company, and he relied on other investors’ due diligence in the company. 

But he said FTX’s collapse won’t change his approach to venture capital investing in the future. “I already know that eight out of 10 deals I’m going to put money into this year are gonna fail. It’s the two that win that pay for all the mistakes,” he said, adding that the deal was a “very expensive mistake. I really don’t like losing $18 million but it doesn’t change the support I give to entrepreneurs.”

However, O’Leary said he no longer plans to invest in unregulated cryptocurrency exchanges or those that are in conflict with their regulators.

The bankruptcy documents also list two Canadian companies that received funds from the exchange’s venture capital arm, FTX Ventures. LayerZero Labs, a Vancouver-based company that offers services that allow digital assets to bridge across blockchains, raised US$135 million at a US$1-billion valuation in a May 2022 round led by FTX. The company made headlines in November when co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino tweeted a memo he’d sent to LayerZero investors announcing that the crypto unicorn had bought out FTX’s entire stake in the company. Pellegrino declined The Logic’s request for comment, and referred to the memo.

Toronto-based Delphia is also listed as a potential FTX creditor. FTX Ventures was a lead investor in the fintech’s $75.2-million all-equity Series A funding round in June 2022. Delphia CEO Andrew Peek declined an interview request.

Montreal-based payments technology provider Nuvei, which announced a partnership with FTX in December 2021 to enable exchange users to receive instant payments to buy cryptocurrencies faster, is also on the creditors list, as is Toronto-based password manager 1Password. Neither company acknowledged multiple requests for comment. 

Avery Pennarun, the Montreal-based co-founder and CEO of Tailscale, initially expressed surprise that he was listed among FTX’s potential creditors when contacted by The Logic. In a message on LinkedIn, he confirmed an FTX subsidiary was a customer of the VPN service provider, but said he couldn’t share more without violating confidentiality. “The dollar amounts are not substantial,” he wrote.

FTX also listed Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and McCarthy Tétrault among its potential creditors. Lawrence Ritchie, a partner at Osler whose expertise includes capital markets regulatory enforcement and who was named in the matrix, declined to comment. McCarthy Tétrault’s manager of communications said in an email it’s the firm’s policy “never to comment on client matters or comment on whether we acted for an organization or not.” 

Other potential Canadian creditors highlight how FTX’s business relationships spread beyond the traditional. Eilidh Lonie, a Calgary-based commentator on the online card game Magic: The Gathering and co-host of the “Elder Dragon Hijinks show” on YouTube, said she is owed $500 for commentary work for an event for Storybook Brawl, a card-based online game. Good Luck Games, the company that created Storybook Brawl, was acquired by FTX US in March 2022.

The acquisition gave Storybook Brawl funds to host more events and to launch the game’s first world championship, which was slated to take place in December 2022. But the transaction was something that Lonie said caused ripples of discontent among gamers who were skeptical of a crypto company’s gaming foray. “There were a lot of bad vibes around it,” she said. While the game is still playable, the esports competitions crumpled alongside FTX. 

Lonie said being out $500 was not a meaningful loss for her, but she sympathized with the game’s developers and community. “This was a real downer for everyone who was really passionate about the game,” she said.

TMX Group spokesperson Catherine Kee confirmed to The Logic in an email that neither it or its subsidiaries, which include the TSX, had claims against the exchange. The OSC referred back to FTX’s statement that its creditors matrix was intentionally broad.

Bish said that in the case of the OSC and other government entities, they may have been named given the function they serve as regulators. “[The company] may want them to have notice and be aware of the proceedings,” he said.

The creditor matrix is separate from the list of FTX account holders, who will be first in line to get money back under Chapter 11 rules, Bish said. But he noted that for Canadian account holders and small-scale creditors, participating in U.S. insolvency proceedings can be “difficult and expensive and confusing” given the complexity of legal documents and number of creditors.