Bitcoin exchange FTX, which has not fallen off the agenda with rumors, is talking about lost BTCs this time. The stock market, which filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, later shared that it was hacked. FTX had $3.3 billion worth of Bitcoin in its heyday. However, on November 7, 2022, the exchange shared that 0.25 BTC was found.
Where are the Bitcoins (BTC)?
5 days before FTX filed for bankruptcy, 20,176 Bitcoins left the exchange in less than 24 hours. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told the public that Binance will dispose of all its FTT tokens. Then people immediately started watching FTX’s reaction. People have also started browsing the crypto balances of the bankrupt exchange.
As we have reported as Kriptokoin.com; A large number of people followed the trading on the stock market the day it filed for bankruptcy protection. In particular, Ethereum-based addresses were followed. However, wallet addresses where FTX held at least 20,176.84 Bitcoins on November 5, 2022 attracted particular attention. The next day, FTX’s BTC reserves decreased to 220.26. Data to November 7, 2022 reports that the company transferred it long before it filed for bankruptcy.
$333M in Bitcoin disappeared from FTX days before filing for bankruptcy
In 2021, FTX was the largest exchange in terms of global cryptocurrency trading volume. Cryptoquant data indicated that the trading platform holds 75,303 BTC. It shows that Bitcoin equates to about 46 thousand dollars per unit. In mid-April 2021, at this exchange rate, 75,000 Bitcoins were worth about $3.3 billion.
On November 6, 2022, FTX’s BTC reserves were equal to 20,176.84 BTC, worth $409 million that day. Looking at the figures transferred today, BTC with a loss of 20,176 is worth $ 333 million. In mid-September 2021, FTX’s BTC reserves fell into the 20k range. It stayed that way for about a year after that. Coinglass data recorded on May 8, 2022 shows that FTX is the 11th largest exchange in terms of BTC reserves.
At that time, FTX held 20,048.43 BTC, according to data from Coinglass. Cryptoquant’s metrics show that on November 19, 2022, FTX had roughly 7 BTC at the wallet address. 20,176.84 BTC is worth approximately $333 million. However, when transferred, the funds equated to approximately $409 million worth.
20,176.84 BTC leaving FTX was reported via Twitter and many more media outlets. With all this, CZ did not tell people that Binance would buy FTX, and later stated that he withdrew from the deal in due diligence. As a result, it is stated that the lost Bitcoins left the stock market before all these events.
🚨🚨 $BTC Exchange Reserves on #FTX hits 0 (ZERO !!)
Let's pray in the name of Satoshi that this isn't a exit scam and those coins have (just) moved to unlabelled FTX-wallets 🥶
Data by @cryptoquant_com
#Bitcoin #Crypto #Onchain #Data #Investments pic.twitter.com/Vazv6lzk0s— Maartunn (@JA_Maartun) November 7, 2022
While the concept of Proof of Reservation continues to attract attention, a number of exchange addresses were already known to the public. FTX’s BTC reserves have been recorded by a number of on-chain data sites, including Cryptoquant, Glassnode, and Coinglass.
How much shipping from FTX to Alameda?
All this does not mean that FTX is selling Bitcoin as a result. However, it is known that the exchange offers a support of approximately 10 billion dollars to Alameda. Part of this is stated to be used to invest startup capital in fiat money, which they may have converted into cryptocurrencies. Alameda is also accused of trading against FTX clients with an open order book and effectively cheating because they can see all trades.
Three Arrows Capital’s Zhu Su is just one of those talking about FTX, and he has this to say:
Clement at FTX HK has leaked our positions and account details to many over the year.
Since 2019, rumors have been circulating for a long time that Alameda has entered into a preferential data deal with Bitmex, where it acts as market maker, and some even with Deribit. As a result, no concrete evidence was ever presented. However, investors opened Bitmex from 2019 due to transactions that some perceive as viable liquidations.
FTX’s claim to sell Bitcoin is a new rumor. Andrew Kang of Mechanism Capital, who publicly announced a $6 billion gap in FTX, explained:
No wonder why BTC reserves are so empty. Whenever someone bought a spot on FTX, Alameda would sell it immediately afterwards. FTX and Alameda sent investor assets to the crypto markets to fund their acquisitions. Otherwise the markets would have been much higher.
Zhu Su drew attention to the deleted account address
Zhu Su also disclosed Alameda’s private conversations that promised “high returns without risk.” Shared the deleted account.
After this convo at the time, @tackettzane, @rsalame7926 others proceeded to bash me nonstop for 2months, making it difficult to even do business. I turned to The Block, sending them all the evidence I had https://t.co/5bEmv9oXFC
— Zhu Su 🔺 (@zhusu) November 15, 2022
Little of this was publicly confirmed during the rise of FTX and Alameda. In particular, Alameda is mentioned as an unknown market maker in the background, which is stated to dominate Bitmex in some way, with many rumors surrounding this relationship, but for which there is no concrete evidence.
In addition, with all these events, the FTX hacker has accelerated his activity recently. Currently, the hacked FTX account has around 200k ETH. Recently, about 50,000 more have been moved. Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, is still free. However, the bankruptcy of the stock market seriously injured the crypto money market, especially BTC.
