Unreported Transactions Linked to Disgraced FTX Co-Founder Revealed by Onchain Investigation
According to onchain research, wallets connected to Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder of FTX, transferred a significant number of previously unreported transactions across various blockchains. The transfers were discovered by Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase, and while most of the transactions took place on Dec. 28, there was some recent activity in the first few days of the new year.
Onchain Discoveries Uncover Suspected Unreported Transactions Associated With SBF, FTX, and Alameda
Roughly a week ago on Dec. 28, 2022, onchain investigators discovered that a number of funds linked to FTX and Alameda Research wallets moved while Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, was on house arrest. Two days after the funds moved, Bankman-Fried tweeted: “None of these are me. I’m not and couldn’t be moving any of those funds; I don’t have access to them anymore.” He was immediately bombarded with questions when he tweeted on Dec. 30. “How is an address that you identified as yours moving funds then?” asked Cobie, a crypto proponent and host of Uponly.
“I believe it is likely the case that various legit legs of FTX have the ability to access these funds; hopefully that’s what’s happening here,” SBF added. “If not, hopefully one steps in soon to do so. I would be happy to help advise regulators on this if any wanted.”
A week after the onchain sleuths discovered the movement of FTX and Alameda-linked addresses, Conor Grogan, a director at Coinbase who frequently tweets about onchain activity, uncovered a large number of SBF-linked tokens that were moved across various blockchains. The movements took place on blockchains such as Polygon, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Arbitrum, and Avalanche. The addresses saw outbound movements for coins such as MATIC, AVAX, USDC, USDT, BTCB, WBTC, SPELL, PTP, MDX, and more.
“SBF (or someone with access to his wallets) most likely transferred $10s of millions in previously unreported transactions across Avalanche, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon blockchains,” Grogan tweeted. “There was also recent activity on 1/02 and 1/03 [and] I found a receiving wallet with $30+ million. I went through each address linked to SBF and checked other blockchains. Private keys for ETH work across other EVM chains,” Grogan added.
In addition to Grogan’s tweets, the onchain researcher Ergo tweeted about some FTX-linked bitcoin movements on Jan. 4, 2023. “Likely bankruptcy team activity,” Ergo said. “ETH tx resets WBTC deposit address, different from the FTX/FTXUS sweep … Segregating FTX and Alameda assets? Address holds 502 BTC sourced from Deribit withdrawals.” At the time of writing, after the initial 502 BTC, the address now has a balance of approximately 3,499 BTC.
Furthermore, following Ergo’s tweet, the researcher also shared a tweet that showed funds were sent to a Wasabi wallet. “Bankruptcy team still not disclosing their addresses,” Ergo said. “But more onchain evidence that the instant swapper addresses are not behaving the same as the ‘legit legs of FTX.’”
Do you have an opinion on the mysterious FTX and Alameda-linked token movements? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.
