The FTX estate is paying, and paying above face value. Class 5A claims have reached 105% of their petition-date amount. More than ten billion dollars has moved.
Across much of the Arab world the figure is still zero.
Egypt. Saudi Arabia. Kuwait. Qatar. Lebanon. Iraq. Morocco. Algeria. Tunisia. Libya. Syria. Sudan. Somalia.
None of these creditors was rejected. Their claims are valid, allowed, and counted in the same pool as everyone else's. The money simply has no route to reach them.
This guide explains where the process breaks, why the region splits the way it does, what FTX has actually said about it, and what a blocked creditor can still do.
The Wall Is at Step 8
To receive a distribution, a creditor works through a sequence in the FTX Customer Portal: identity verification, tax documentation, then the selection of a distribution service provider. That last step is where it stops.
FTX pays through three partners: BitGo, Kraken and Payoneer. Each publishes its own list of supported jurisdictions, dated May 22, 2026. A creditor can only select a provider that serves their country.
In those thirteen countries, none of the three does. The dropdown at Step 8 is empty. There is nothing to choose, so the process cannot continue.
The Region Is Split, and Not Along the Line You Would Expect
The blocked list is not "the Arab world." Nine Arab League members have working access today.
| Access | Countries |
|---|---|
| All three providers | United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan |
| Two providers | Oman, Yemen, Comoros, Mauritania, Djibouti |
| One provider | Palestine |
| No provider | Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia |
Set those two groups against each other and the pattern refuses to resolve. The UAE and Bahrain are served; Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are not. Jordan is served; Lebanon is not. Oman is served; Qatar is not.
These are neighbours with comparable banking systems and comparable regulatory postures. Yemen, a country in the middle of a humanitarian catastrophe, has two providers. Qatar has none.
Sanctions do not explain it. Syria and Libya carry restrictions that make the outcome unsurprising, but Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Kuwait do not, and they land on opposite sides of the line. Wealth does not explain it either.
Why the Line Falls Where It Does
There is a regulatory landscape underneath this. The UAE and Bahrain built licensing regimes for virtual assets early: VARA in Dubai, FSRA in Abu Dhabi, central bank licences in Bahrain. Custodians had somewhere to stand. Saudi Arabia's central bank has instructed banks not to process unlicensed crypto transactions. Qatar's financial centre banned virtual asset activity in 2020.
That is a plausible story, and it may be the right one. But it is inference, not explanation, and one detail cuts against it.
Payoneer does not touch crypto. It pays in fiat, by bank transfer, and it operates commercially in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait today. For FTX distributions it excludes all three.
Whatever is happening there is not about crypto licensing. It looks like compliance requirements imposed further up the chain, by the correspondent banks that clear dollars for the estate, and nobody involved has said so publicly.
The honest answer is that we do not know. The three providers publish which countries they serve. None of them publishes why. FTX has not explained the gaps, and the public documents do not contain the reasoning.
What FTX Has Actually Said
Two things, both official, both narrow.
The first is a status. As of May 22, 2026, FTX names 45 jurisdictions whose residents cannot select a distribution service provider in the Customer Portal. Thirteen of them are Arab countries. The page says eligibility "continues to be assessed and may change."
The second is a warning that cuts the other way. A holder of an allowed claim who does not successfully onboard with a provider within six months of July 31, 2026 may forfeit the right to distributions on that claim.
Read those together and the position is uncomfortable. Onboarding requires a provider. Thirteen countries have no provider. The clock is running anyway.
There is one more moving part. FTX's own guidance says that where a provider cannot pay into a creditor's jurisdiction, the distribution is deferred to a later date, and that a claim from an unsupported country may be moved to disputed status until a working payment route exists. A claim in that state is not expunged, but it is also not counted as allowed for distribution purposes.
What This Means in Practice
A creditor in Cairo or Riyadh holding an allowed Class 5A claim is in an unusual position. On paper they are owed 105% of petition-date value, the same as a creditor in Frankfurt. In practice they have received nothing, and the mechanism that would pay them does not exist yet.
Three things follow.
Waiting has an undefined length. "More providers will be added" is not a schedule. The restricted-jurisdiction question has been open since mid-2025, when the Trust filed a motion covering 49 countries and then withdrew it in November without replacing it. A year later the operational gap is still there.
The claim keeps its value while it waits. This is the part creditors most often get wrong. A blocked payout does not reduce the claim. Petition-date value is fixed, post-petition interest accrues on the same terms as everyone else's, and the claim can be transferred. What is blocked is receipt, not entitlement.
Transfer moves the problem. A claim sold to a buyer in a served jurisdiction is paid through that buyer's provider. This is why claims from blocked countries trade at all: the buyer is not purchasing a broken claim, they are purchasing a working claim that its current holder cannot collect.
Selling From a Blocked Jurisdiction
The mechanics are the same as anywhere else. A sale is executed under Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 3001(e): a written agreement, then a Notice of Transfer filed with Kroll, then the buyer becomes the holder of record. A 21-day objection window runs before the transfer is final.
Being in one of the thirteen countries does not prevent the transfer. It affects two things: the price, because the buyer is taking on the jurisdiction risk you are selling, and the settlement rail, because payment usually goes out in USDT rather than through a bank.
For a clean Class 5A claim Qredax buys at up to 95% of face value. A claim stuck in KYC review is priced case by case. The discount is the price of certainty: you are exchanging an open-ended wait for a fixed amount now.
Whether that trade makes sense depends on how long you think the wait is, and nobody currently knows the answer to that.
Check Your Own Position
Our FTX Payout Tracker shows provider coverage by country, with the date each provider list was published and a link to the source document for every figure. If your country is on the ineligible roster, the tracker says so and shows the official statement it comes from.
The tracker is research, published as it stands. Qredax buys claims, which makes us an interested party. The data does not change depending on whether you sell.
Blocked at Step 8? Send us the claim.
Your Kroll customer code, your claim class, and your country. We reply within one business day with a firm assessment. An NDA covers your documents before you share anything, and there is no obligation to accept.
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