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FTX Disbursement — 'Signature Pending to be FTX Ready' / Agreements Must Be Signed

FTX Disbursement — "Signature Pending to be FTX Ready" / Agreements Must Be Signed

Problem

FTX creditors who selected BitGo as their distribution agent see a banner on the BitGo dashboard reading: "Signature Pending to be FTX Ready — Agreements must be signed before you are approved for your FTX disbursement. The primary contact of your account [EMAIL] must log in to sign the agreements." The email shown in the banner is typically different from the email the customer uses to log in, causing confusion. The customer cannot locate agreements to sign, may not have a BitGo account under the primary-contact email, or receives errors when trying to reset the password for that email. This blocks the enterprise from becoming FTX-distribution-ready.

Diagnostics

  • Identify the enterprise and its primary contact (owner). Look up the customer's enterprise in the admin tool. Confirm the enterprise name, enterprise ID, and the email listed as the owner role. This is the email the banner references.
  • Check owner account status. Look up the owner email in the admin tool (bga u [EMAIL]). Note whether the account is active or inactive, and whether the email is verified or unverified.
  • Check agreement signature status. In the enterprise JSON (/enterprises/<id>/json), look for the tradeOnboardingAgreement, stakingServicesAgreement, and custodyServicesAgreement objects. If these are present with a date and user field, the agreements have already been signed. If absent, they are still pending.
  • Check KYC status. Confirm whether KYC for the enterprise is approved. If KYC is approved and agreements are signed, the banner should disappear after the owner logs in.
  • Determine root cause category:
    • Owner email is correct but the customer doesn't realize they need to log in with that specific email → Scenario A.
    • Owner email account exists but is inactive → Scenario B.
    • Owner email account does not exist (user not found on password reset) → Scenario C.
    • Owner email is misspelled or incorrect (e.g., typo during FTX onboarding, or an outdated email from the FTX database) → Scenario D.
    • Customer logged in as owner but cannot find any agreements to sign → Scenario E.

Resolution

Scenario: agreements-signature-must-sign#owner-login-required

Trigger: The primary contact email shown in the banner is correct and belongs to the customer (or their team), but they are logging in with a different email (e.g., the enterprise member email rather than the owner email).

Signals: primary contact, must log in, sign agreements, different email, owner role, two emails, personal vs company email

Steps:

  1. Confirm with the customer that the email shown in the banner is indeed theirs (or belongs to someone on their team).
  2. Instruct the primary contact to log in to BitGo at https://app.bitgo.com/web/auth/login using the owner email shown in the banner.
  3. If they do not remember their password, direct them to reset it at: https://app.bitgo.com/web/auth/forgot-password/recover-password
  4. Once the primary contact logs in, the agreements are automatically signed and the banner disappears. There is no separate document to locate or sign manually.
  5. After login, advise them to activate the Go Account under the Trade tab on the BitGo dashboard.
  6. Confirm KYC status is approved. If approved, inform the customer that no further action is required on the BitGo side.

Notes: The agreements auto-sign upon the owner's first login. There is no separate signing page, PDF, or email link. Many customers are confused because they expect to see a document — reassure them that logging in as the owner is the signing mechanism. For security and compliance reasons, BitGo does not provide agreements in PDF format to external parties.

"Please be informed that the primary contact of the enterprise has to sign the agreement for you to be able to use Go account and since they have not, that's why this banner." (ticket #207787)

"As soon as the primary contact login in, agreement will gets auto signed. You should be able to us the Go Account from the Trade Tab." (ticket #256379)

"Since [EMAIL] is the Primary Contact and Owner - and you are seeing the below banner, you need to login to your BitGo account and as soon as you've login automatically the pending signature issue will gets resolved." (ticket #255447)

Scenario: agreements-signature-must-sign#owner-account-inactive

Trigger: The owner email has an existing BitGo account but it is in an inactive state, causing password reset or login to fail.

Signals: inactive, user not found, password reset failed, account inactive, ApiResponseError

Steps:

  1. Look up the owner email in the admin tool and confirm account status is inactive.
  2. Activate the account internally using the admin tool.
  3. Inform the customer that the account has been activated and direct them to reset their password at: https://app.bitgo.com/web/auth/forgot-password/recover-password
  4. Once the customer resets the password and logs in, the agreements will auto-sign.
  5. If the customer needs to verify identity before activation (for security), ask them to provide:
    • The date of their BitGo email verification (search inbox for an email titled "Your BitGo Email Verification").
    • Their BitGo Go Account wallet balance.

Notes: Inactive accounts are common for FTX enterprise owner emails that were provisioned from the FTX database but never fully onboarded by the customer. The activation step is a back-end operation performed by support.

"We have activated the account. Could you try logging in using the email now." (ticket #201901)

"Your BitGo account ([EMAIL]) is now active. To get started, please set a new password using the secure link below: https://app.bitgo.com/web/auth/forgot-password/recover-password" (ticket #248453)

"We have activated the account for the email: [EMAIL]. Kindly login via the above email. If you don't have access, you can use the following link to initiate reset password: https://app.bitgo.com/web/auth/forgot-password/recover-password" (ticket #226343)

Scenario: agreements-signature-must-sign#owner-account-does-not-exist

Trigger: The owner email shown in the banner does not have a BitGo account at all — password reset returns "user not found" and the admin tool shows no record.

Signals: user not found, no account, ApiResponseError, does not exist, never registered

Steps:

  1. Confirm in the admin tool that no account exists for the owner email.
  2. Determine whether the email is correct (belongs to the customer or their organization) or is a typo/outdated address. If it is a typo, follow Scenario D instead.
  3. If the email is correct but simply never had an account created, check if there is a verification email that was sent. If the customer can find the BitGo verification email, have them complete verification to create the account.
  4. If no verification email exists, activate/create the account internally and notify the customer.
  5. Direct the customer to reset password at https://app.bitgo.com/web/auth/forgot-password/recover-password and log in.
  6. Once logged in, agreements auto-sign.

Notes: Some owner emails were provisioned from the FTX creditor database but the account was never fully created. This differs from inactive accounts — here the user record may not exist at all.

"Check for email verification mail in their inbox [EMAIL]. Verify their email. Login to BitGo. Sign the agreement. If in case they are unable to find the verification mail, please respond back to this thread from [EMAIL] and we will guide you with next steps." (ticket #207787)

Scenario: agreements-signature-must-sign#owner-email-incorrect

Trigger: The owner email shown in the banner is misspelled, belongs to a former employee, or is otherwise not the correct email for the enterprise.

Signals: misspelled, wrong email, typo, former employee, no access, email changed, incorrect email

Steps:

  1. Confirm the discrepancy: ask the customer what the correct owner email should be and why the displayed email is incorrect.
  2. For misspelled emails: escalate internally (via Slack or the appropriate internal channel) to request the email correction on the enterprise.
  3. For email changes (e.g., customer changed their email on the FTX portal after BitGo onboarding): note that BitGo does not support email changes directly. The customer may need to coordinate with FTX as well. Escalate internally.
  4. For former employees or inaccessible emails: a video verification call may be required. The call procedure is:
    • Ask the customer for their availability.
    • On the call: request permission to record; ask for full name, company name, title; current date/time/timezone; hold government-issued photo ID to webcam; state the reason for the call; name the enterprise(s).
    • After successful verification, update the primary contact internally.
  5. Once the email is corrected, have the new owner log in so agreements auto-sign.

Notes: Email changes are sensitive operations. Always confirm ownership of both the enterprise and the new email. BitGo does not support self-service email changes on FTX enterprises. For straightforward corrections (clear typos), internal teams can update without a video call. For substantive changes, a video verification call is standard.

"It seems the primary contact email is misspelled and thus we are not receiving the documents to sign." (ticket #212600)

"We'd like Jiamin to join a call, verify her identity with her passport, and confirm the reason for the call is to update her email address." (ticket #251550)

"We've updated your primary contact of your account to [EMAIL]. Please try logging into your account and let us know if you are still seeing the error." (ticket #199018)

Scenario: agreements-signature-must-sign#logged-in-but-no-agreement-visible

Trigger: The customer successfully logs in with the owner email but does not see any agreement, pop-up, or signing prompt anywhere in the UI.

Signals: no agreement, cannot find, no pop-up, logged in but nothing to sign, where to sign, agreement not visible

Steps:

  1. Check the enterprise JSON for the agreement fields (tradeOnboardingAgreement, stakingServicesAgreement, custodyServicesAgreement). If they are already populated with a date, the agreements were auto-signed upon login and no further action is needed.
  2. Inform the customer: "The agreements are signed automatically when the primary contact logs in. If the banner has disappeared, the process is complete."
  3. If the banner persists despite the agreements showing as signed in the backend, and the Go Account is enabled:
    • Advise the customer to navigate to the Trade tab and click Start Trading. An agreement may appear as a pop-up during this step.
    • Recommend using a desktop/laptop browser rather than mobile for better compatibility.
  4. If the backend still shows agreements as unsigned after owner login, escalate to the internal FTX retail KYC team (Slack channel #ftx-retail-kyc or equivalent).
  5. Confirm KYC is approved. If it is, inform the customer no further action is required on BitGo's side.

Notes: In most cases, simply logging in as the owner auto-signs the agreements. If the customer logs in and the banner disappears, the issue is resolved even if they never saw a document. Some customers using mobile browsers have reported issues — always recommend desktop browsers.

"To proceed, we kindly ask that the primary contact of the entity log in to the BitGo platform and follow the steps outlined below to enable trading access: Navigate to the Trading tab. Click on Start Trading. An agreement will appear as a pop-up." (ticket #244897)

"Log in to your account, click on profile icon on the top right corner - choose switch to classic view. In the dropdown, Choose BitGo Trust Account. Navigate to the Trade tab to begin the activation process for your Go account." (ticket #282760)

"If you're unable to see the agreement, it will still be approved—this is not a problem. As we can see, your account is active, and there won't be any issues." (ticket #196796)

Post-resolution guidance (all scenarios):

After agreements are signed and KYC is confirmed approved:

  • Advise the customer to activate the Go Account under the Trade tab on the BitGo dashboard if not already done.
  • FTX distributions are in USD. Customers can either trade to crypto in the Trade tab or withdraw USD to a bank account via the Banking tab.
  • For distribution timeline questions, BitGo cannot advise. Direct customers to https://claims.ftx.com/ or FTX support at the official FTX email addresses listed at https://support.ftx.com/hc/en-us/articles/19223337707412-Official-Email-Addresses.
  • Reference the FTX FAQ: https://www.bitgo.com/ftx-faq/

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