FTX users who are owed $1.9 billion want their names to stay redacted from the embattled exchange's bankruptcy filings

• A group of FTX.com customers want their identities to be kept secret during the crypto exchange's bankruptcy process.
• The users, who claim to be owed $1.9 billion, asked for a court order to keep their names shielded from the public.

A group of 15 non-US FTX customers, who say they are owed $1.9 billion from the troubled crypto exchange, want their identities to stay redacted from the firm's bankruptcy filings.

The FTX.com users asked for a court order to continue to shield their names, adding that public disclosure of their identities puts them at risk of various scams and cyber crimes, according to a filing on Wednesday.

"It is difficult to imagine a more compelling case that would warrant withholding and redacting the information of the thousands of FTX.com customers who had their funds stolen and never anticipated that their use of cryptocurrency and FTX.com would become publicly known," the court filing reads.

Judge John Dorsey, who is overseeing FTX's bankruptcy case, is scheduled to hear arguments January 11 on customer privacy and consider if the information should stay redacted. Firms in bankruptcy, however, usually disclose the names and amounts of debt held by creditors in public documents.

"Cryptocurrency holders are particularly susceptible to fraud and theft because cryptocurrency is difficult to trace and there are fewer security safeguards in place to protect the assets," the FTX customers wrote.

FTX filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11 after a severe liquidity crunch. The embattled platform — started by dethroned exec Sam Bankman-Fried — lost at least $8 billion of customer money after reportedly using FTX deposits for its sister trading firm Alameda Research.