Exchanges could practice provable solvency ( https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/1008.pdf ), but they aggressively do not-- in part because they don't want to bring customers attention to the potential issue (and they rightfully reason that once customers are concerned no amount of technical solution will likely satisfy them).
But FTX wasn't really an exchange-- it was a scamcoin casino primarily trading in highly leveraged proxy assets ("perpetuals") as a bucketshop.