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 <p>A former FTX executive who was head of the exchange’s European operation when it collapsed in 2022 has reportedly purchased a gold pocket watch worn by property tycoon John Jacob Astor IV when he was killed in the sinking of the RMS Titanic in April 1912.&nbsp;</p>
 <p>According to The Wall Street Journal, former head of FTX Europe Patrick Gruhn paid £1.175 million (roughly $1.5 million) for the watch at the Henry Aldridge &amp; Son auction.&nbsp;This is the highest price ever paid for a piece of Titanic memorabilia.</p>
 <p>Astor, who was the <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="richest" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/richest.html">richest</a> <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="passenger" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/passenger.html">passenger</a> aboard the doomed liner with an estimated fortune of around $90 million — <strong>equivalent to several billion dollars today</strong> — was apparently last seen smoking a cigarette and chatting to his fellow <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="passenger" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/passenger.html">passenger</a>s as the ship sank after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic.</p>
 <p>His body, along with the 14-carat gold Waltham pocket <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="watch" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/watch.html">watch</a>, was recovered a week later.</p>
 <figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="850" height="566" src="https://cdn.thebittimes.com/images/2024/05/01/ac827ca8ebe27cf804388adfd45b3a11.webp" alt class="wp-image-65565" srcset="https://cdn.thebittimes.com/images/2024/05/01/ac827ca8ebe27cf804388adfd45b3a11.webp 850w, https://cdn.thebittimes.com/images/2024/05/01/ac827ca8ebe27cf804388adfd45b3a11.webp 300w, https://cdn.thebittimes.com/images/2024/05/01/ac827ca8ebe27cf804388adfd45b3a11.webp 768w" sizes="(max-width: 850px) 100vw, 850px">
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   Astor’s gold watch engraved with his initials pictured on Henry Aldridge and Son’s website.
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 <p>After outbidding his competition, Gruhn said, “We want people in the US to be able to see and admire this historic relic,” and <strong>plans to display the watch in a museum</strong>.&nbsp;</p>
 <p>The museum might be a better place for the <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="watch" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/watch.html">watch</a> than the secondary market with the Financial Times reporting that luxury <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="watch" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/watch.html">watch</a>makers are struggling with a slump in profits this year. Market prices reportedly peaked in May 2022 and have fallen across the seven quarters since.&nbsp;</p>
 <h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-ftx-overspent-323-million-buying-patrick-gruhn-s-firm">FTX overspent $323 million buying Patrick Gruhn’s firm</h2>
 <p>FTX sued Gruhn and the founders of the Swiss firm Digital Assets DA AG in 2023. The lawsuit claimed that Sam Bankman-Fried’s $323 million acquisition of the firm was a ‘<strong>massive overpayment</strong>‘ that used FTX customer funds.</p>
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   <blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="SgROwU07J3">
    Everything that’s happened with FTX in 2023
   </blockquote><iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);" title="“Everything that’s happened with FTX in 2023” — Protos" src="https://protos.com/everything-thats-happened-with-ftx-in-2023/embed/#?secret=vbwyKTFuqs#?secret=SgROwU07J3" data-secret="SgROwU07J3" width="500" height="282" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
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 <p><em>Read more: FTX owes more in legal fees than it does to creditors</em></p>
 <p>FTX attempted to sell the firm back to its founders for the full amount but eventually settled with Gruhn and the other founders on a price of just $33 million for the firm.&nbsp;</p>
 <p>Gruhn claims he’s used funds from the sale of his companies to buy the <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" title="watch" href="https://thebittimes.com/tag/watch.html">watch</a> and <strong>denies knowing anything about Bankman-Fried’s fraud</strong> before its collapse.</p>
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<p>Source: <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://thebittimes.com/former-ftx-exec-pays-1-5m-for-watch-worn-by-titanic-s-richest-passenger-tbt87141.html">https://thebittimes.com/former-ftx-exec-pays-1-5m-for-watch-worn-by-titanic-s-richest-passenger-tbt87141.html</a></p>

Former FTX exec pays $1.5M for watch worn by Titanic's richest passenger

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