Alameda's cryptocurrency wallets came to life after Sam Bankman-Fried's bailout
Funds in various cryptocurrencies were transferred to Ethereum and USDT, passed through cryptomixers and eventually collected at several bitcoin addresses, with balances totaling about $800k.
Cryptocurrency wallets associated with Alameda Research began showing activity days after Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the Alameda-affiliated exchange FTX, was released on bail, The Block reported. On the morning of Dec. 28, Ethereum addresses affiliated with the trading firm Alameda conducted several transactions to exchange various cryptocurrencies for Ethereum and USDT, and then exchanged them for bitcoin, according to Etherscan.
The flow of these funds raised questions from the cryptocurrency community because mixing services such as ChangeNow and FixedFloat were used to move assets, according to the publication. These mixers confuse cryptocurrency flows, making it difficult to further identify token owners and the origin of transferred funds.
A community-renowned cryptosurveyor and fraud whistleblower under the pseudonym ZachXBT has identified four bitcoin wallets where assets transferred from Alameda wallets are consolidated. According to the onchain data, these wallets hold a total of 47.6 BTC (about $800,000), the article said.
These transactions occurred days after former FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried was released on bail. After his extradition from the Bahamas, Judge Gabriel Gorenstein allowed Bankman-Fried to remain under house arrest, setting a bail amount of $250 million at a Dec. 22 court hearing.
This is not the first unexpected transfer of funds from FTX and Alameda since the start of the exchange's collapse. Tokens worth $372 million were withdrawn from FTX accounts immediately after the exchange filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11. Former exchange executives insisted it was a hack.
According to journalists, authorities have managed to partially freeze funds on some platforms.
Analysis of the movement of stolen funds showed that the funds withdrawn from the wallets FTX were first exchanged for Ethereum through decentralized exchanges, and then transferred to bitcoins. According to ZachXBT, some of the funds were deposited into a cryptomixer.
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