An interesting part of Madoff recoveries were through settlements against originators/feeder funds because they « ought » to have known it was a ponzi.

Unsure if FTX creditors will be able to do the same.

But mostly, Madoff himself didn’t really spend much money. Just did nothing with it. The few pieces of fancy real estate he lived in were actually profitable because he didn’t build some gawdy illiquid palace.

But there was a lot of time-value loss that isn’t accounted for. Even 14 years later there are still distributions. Even getting $1 back on your 1995 $1 is still a big loss.