Sam Bankman-Fried’s bankrupt digital-asset exchange FTX was hit by a mysterious outflow of about $662 million (R10.3 billion) in tokens in the past 24 hours, the latest twist in one of the darkest periods for the crypto industry.
Customers still coming to terms with the platform’s Friday plunge into Chapter 11 proceedings were subsequently confronted with what the general counsel of its US arm, Ryne Miller, described as “abnormalities with wallet movements.”
Miller said on Twitter that FTX had begun moving digital assets into cold storage — wallets that are unconnected to the internet — following its bankruptcy filing on Friday. The process was later expedited “to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorised transactions.”
Blockchain analytics firm Nansen, which gave the overall estimate of $662 million in withdrawals, said the coins flowed out of both FTX’s international and US exchanges. A separate analysis by Elliptic stated that initial indications showed almost $475 million had been stolen from the exchange in illicit transactions, with the stablecoins and other tokens that were taken being rapidly converted to Ether on decentralized exchanges — “a common technique used by hackers in order to prevent their haul being seized.”
Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at stablecoin issuer Tether, referenced a tweet suggesting it had blacklisted more than $30 million of the “FTX attacker’s” holdings in its USDT token.
Following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings - FTX US and FTX [dot] com initiated precautionary steps to move all digital assets to cold storage. Process was expedited this evening - to mitigate damage upon observing unauthorized transactions.
— Ryne Miller (@_Ryne_Miller) November 12, 2022
“It’s unclear exactly who’s making the transactions, but you wouldn’t expect to see these on-chain trades at this time,” said Alex Svanevik, chief executive officer at Nansen.