Last year, an FTX executive walked into a bank office here and put $4.5m of the company’s money behind an ambitious plan to buy an oceanside parcel of land and turn it into the crypto giant’s new headquarters.

The executive, Ryan Salame, closed the deal in short order, people familiar with the matter said, just part of the company’s whirlwind real-estate shopping spree in and around Nassau. In April, the Bahamas prime minister appeared with FTX executives at a ceremonial groundbreaking on the new land. But construction never really got underway. FTX collapsed this month, its real-estate holdings now subsumed in bankruptcy.