The new CEO of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, John Ray, testified on Tuesday before the US House Financial Services Committee. He said troubles at the firm had begun years before the company's bankruptcy.

He said the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing was the best way to preserve the remaining value of FTX, and that his first act as CEO was to authorize the procedure.

He said over 1 billion dollars in assets have been secured and moved to a safe place.

Ray said FTX's troubles were not something that happened overnight, but were a "culmination of months or even years of bad decisions and poor financial controls."

He also pointed out that the problem was that senior management had free access to customers' data and funds over a period of many years.

Ray is known for overseeing the liquidation of US energy firm Enron. On FTX's bankruptcy, Ray referred to the "unprecedented" lack of record keeping and called it a sort of paperless bankruptcy, indicating difficulty in finding out details about the company's finances.

Former FTX CEO, Samuel Bankman-Fried, was also due to testify at Tuesday's hearing, but he did not appear as he was arrested on Monday in The Bahamas where the exchange was based.