Is it possible that the founder of FTX forgot he was arrested?
BowTiedIguana, a crypto analyst specializing in DeFi education, revealed on Dec. 29 that there was evidence about Sam Bankman-Fried’s potential transactions that may have violated his bail terms.
According to the analyst, on-chain data indicated that the former CEO of FTX recently may have transferred $684k to an exchange in Seychelles in multiple transactions.
In particular, on Dec. 28, a public wallet (0xD5758) sent the remaining ETH to a freshly created wallet (0x7386d). That public wallet previously belonged to Sushiswap’s shadowy founder Chef Nomi but Nomi transferred the wallet’s control to Bankman-Fried in September 2020.
Apart from the public wallet’s funds, the 0x7386d also received $689k from different wallets, including 32 wallets potentially linked to Alameda Research.
The Big Cash-Out?
The total was later moved to FixedFloat, a Seychelles-based automatic cryptocurrency exchange, and cross-chain protocol RenBridge. RenBridge has become a place for cybercriminals to facilitate money laundering with huge value.
BowTiedIguana suggested that Sam Bankman-Fried could have violated his bail release terms and conditions as, “the Ethereum blockchain is an immutable public ledger, this on-chain evidence is permanently available to law enforcement and the courts.”
A New York federal court agreed to release Sam Bankman-Fried on Dec. 22 with a bail of $250 million.
The decision came with conditions. He had to wear an electronic surveillance bracelet, hand over his passport to authorities, and be placed under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California while awaiting trial.
SBK is only allowed to spend less than $100. Violation of the terms could cause his bond forfeited, causing big trouble for his parents. However, some crypto members argued that those transfers didn’t breach the bail release.
Transferring money or converting it to cash does not count as spending money. In a previous statement, Bankman-Fried said that he only had $100,000 left in his balance.
According to Forbes’ rating at the end of April, he held the position of the world’s second-richest cryptocurrency millionaire with a net worth of $24 billion. At the beginning of November, he still possessed assets worth $15.6 billion, but after only a couple of days, he became a debtor.
The disgraced cryptocurrency figure is accused of using large sums of consumer money for personal purposes. According to Fox News, Bankman-Fried purchased a penthouse that cost $40 million and a piece of land that cost $60 million in order to build the future headquarters of his FTX empire.
Additionally, it was stated that he was responsible for the weekly expenditure of tens of thousands of dollars on staff in the Bahamas.
In addition, there is a boat valued at millions of dollars and is outfitted with a variety of opulent luxuries. According to a person who is familiar with the situation, Bankman-Fried reportedly spent $2,500 each day on lunch at Cocoplum, a restaurant located down the street from the headquarters of FTX.
The SEC is Coming for SBF
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Department of Justice are investigating the collapse of FTX. The SEC recently revealed additional information on FTX contagion, showing that Alameda Research was the force behind a puppet company North Dimension Inc. where people sent money.
North Dimension has the same registered address as FTX US and a platform with poor AI-generated content.
The SEC also discovered that Sam Bankman-Fried used client cash totaling $200 million to make entrepreneurial investments through FTX Ventures. One of these investments totals $100 million, going to Mysten Labs, the business behind the Sui (SUI) project.
FTX’s partners also suffered when FTX filed for bankruptcy. The list of enterprises includes Binance, BlockFi, Celsius Network, Coinbase, CoinShares, Crypto.com, Galaxy Digital Holdings, Genesis Trading, and Voyager Digital, among others.
BlockFi, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency lenders, filed for bankruptcy protection in November following the FTX collapse while other companies linked to FTX are facing financial crises.
