The rule to the refund process is:

Creditors first
Other users afterwards.

I don't know if their retail users will be rewarded in full or they'd take some sort of haircut and reduce percentage down. What's good about the latest developments on FTX saga is that users will get something back as opposed to 2022 when we thought it was done and over for any and all users that has money on it at the time of their bankruptcy filings.

Sorry about your loss. Just keep your fingers crossed and hopefully you will be made whole.

As announced they will pay creditors in USD, not bitcoin or any altcoin, shitcoin. So there have been some theories that FTX's debt repayment will not be negative, but on the contrary, it could bring positive things to the market if the victims continue to use that money to invest in the market again.

These assumptions are not without basis, if you pay attention, you will see a huge difference that every time there is news about Mt.gox compensation, the market will become negative and panic. But on the contrary, news related to FTX had almost no negative impact on the market and even had a positive impact on the FTT token. We don't need to worry too much about FTX paying $16 billion causing negative impacts on the market and should congratulate the victims on getting their money back soon.

Based on the article that you shared OP, the starting date on when they will be paying these investors aren't disclosed yet, so we don't know when the sold off happen, or did it happen already. Whatever the case is, this is a good thing for those who lost their money storing their funds in this exchange. Who would've thought that a huge exchange like FTX will go bankrupt? I mean yes, we expect that all exchange can just experience this, but most of the time, it's the small exchanges. This time, it's FTX. This just shows that any exchange, small or big can go bankrupt anytime.

Like what others said, don't store your assets on an exchange unless you're planning to sell it. If you want to maximize the "EARN" features of different exchange, at least put an amount that you're ready just in case things go south. As for this having an effect towards crypto, since they've said that it would be paid in fiat, expect a sell-off in the future (assuming that they didn't still sell it now since they didn't disclose it) hence, pushing the prices of Bitcoin and altcoins down.

As for the exchange though, I wonder how they will recover from this, or will they recover from this.

This is a shame but quite expected since FTX would want to spend as little as they can and this is also to maintain consistency. They need to pick the cloest time frame to when the funds were lost. This is disappointing but can still be considered a win by those who fell victim to FTX. This is a lot better than not getting anything at all.

May this serve as a reminder of the possible consequences of using an exchange to store our funds in. Do not put all your funds in one platform and make sure to diversify.

Yeah, keeping your funds in one place, especially something like any CEX - may shoot up back badly.
I agree that people, many of them in fact would be angry that they won't get the amount of money they would currently have, however, they will have at least some kind of compensation, which is better than leaving them all without anything at all.
I hope this whole situation will be a lesson for people who store most of their assets in one place.

Yeah, not only on this forum but on others and overall too - though it's unfortunate that this lesson was given in such a form, alas, it will be remembered in the thoughts of others better, so that this situation wouldn't happen to them (or there would be less chances of it happening).

It all depends on them because if they are honest they will not blame crypto and will admit it is their fault. Because I believe that as a crypto investor, everyone is very familiar with the saying “not your keys, not your coins”. If they adhere to this, never trust any third party and they will never fall into such a heartbreaking situation . Only selfish people blame crypto when it's their fault.

As I see it, many people were victims of Mt.gox and it's been 10 years but they are still bitcoin investors, they haven't left the market or blamed the market as you think . Not everyone is selfish, not everyone has negative thoughts or gives up early just because of a few failures.