On Friday, Sam Bankman-Friedโs bankrupt buying and selling firm Alameda Analysis deposited over $30 million into Binance.
Provided that Bankman-Fried is presently serving a 25-year jail sentence for orchestrating fraudulent schemes at FTX associated to Alameda Analysis, the switch instantly raised questions on Alamedaโs belongings.
Particularly why, if nearly all of those chapter property belongings are purported to be returned to victims of Bankman-Friedโs schemes, does it have any cash left?
Sadly, the funds of FTX and its sister buying and selling firm have been a large number because the conglomerate filed for chapter in November 2022.
Because of this, determining how a lot cash FTX and Alameda Analysis nonetheless results in a little bit of a rabbit gap.
A chapter mess worse than Enron
John J. Ray III, who cleaned up the mess of Enron and different large bankruptcies like Nortel Networks, described the state of accounting at FTX as far worse.
Executives like Bankman-Fried stored unfastened and incomplete information about quite a few transfers between FTX, Alameda Analysis, affiliated corporations, and employees.
FTX as soon as held FTT tokens value over $20 billion, nevertheless it now holds lower than $250 million. Bankman-Fried additionally repeatedly borrowed from non-consenting FTX clients to fund Alameda Analysisโs trades.
For context, from a peak worth of over $64 billion, in line with estimates by Arkham Intelligence, FTXโs wallets excluding Alameda immediately are value lower than $600 million.
Individually, Alameda Analysisโs crypto wallets maintain $1.2 billion value of digital belongings โ most of which includes about $1 billion value of solana (SOL).
Nonetheless, Alamedaโs massive SOL holdings usually are not the denomination of Fridayโs curious switch.
As a substitute, a bitcoin (BTC) deal with managed by Alameda and labeled โWBTC Service provider Depositโ acquired and instantly despatched 250 BTC value about $30 million to Binance.
Though the greenback quantity is substantial, actions from FTX and Alameda Analysis arenโt unusual. This 12 months alone, there have been dozens of transfers from FTX and Alameda Analysis wallets.
Two apparent explanations for Alameda Analysis transfers
To start with, FTX is actively making repayments to victims.
Certainly, this 12 months alone, billions of {dollars} value of repayments occurred in April, Might, and September, together with repayments to victims via exchanges like Kraken and Bitgo.
Per claimantsโ directions, conversions via exchanges like Binance or elsewhere are wanted to pay USD equal quantities as of the chapter submitting date.
Importantly, recipients are positioned in varied international locations around the globe, and Binance is usually the most important alternate in lots of worldwide jurisdictions.
Learn extra: What did Alameda Analysis do with $40B in USDT?
Secondly, the FTX chapter property is incurring substantial authorized charges. Conversion of digital belongings via exchanges are essential to make payouts to numerous attorneys and contractors aiding with the chapter proceedings.
Submit-bankruptcy, the FTX chapter property has held greater than $16 billion value of belongings.
After substantial authorized charges, billions of {dollars} value of repayments to victims, and unstable digital asset costs, Arkham Intelligence estimates $590 million value of crypto belongings held by FTX plus $1.2 billion by Alameda Analysis.
These digital asset holdings are along with money, actual property, fairness investments, and different belongings recovered by the chapter crew.
