Reuters: FTX CEO used customer funds to bail out Alameda

Sam Bankman-Fried decided to take this step because his trading firm had suffered a series of deal losses

10.11.2022 - 08:15

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2 min

What’s new? According to Reuters, Sam Bankman-Fried, the head of the FTX crypto exchange, transferred at least $4 billion to the platform’s asset-backed funds, including native tokens FTT and shares of crypto broker Robinhood (it owns 7,6% of the securities). Some of these funds were taken from FTX’s customer deposits, but the amount is not yet known. Bankman-Fried decided to take this step because his trading firm Alameda Research incurred losses following deals to rescue a number of crypto companies.

Material by Reuters

What else does the publication report? Among Alameda’s deals was a $500 million loan agreement with the bankrupt crypto broker Voyager Digital. FTX bought its assets for $1,42 billion in September. The exact amount of losses incurred by Alameda is unknown, Reuters writes. Bankman-Fried did not tell other FTX executives about the move to back Alameda. He was afraid of leaks, sources said.

Earlier, CoinMetrics also suggested that FTX lost its solvency as a result of its $4,19 billion bailout to Alameda.

Situation around FTX. On November 2, it became known that most of Alameda’s assets were stored in FTT. After that, Binance began a complete liquidation of its positions in FTT and later announced a takeover deal of FTX, as a result of which the rate of the exchange’s token collapsed by more than 70% and Bankman-Fried lost 93,6% of his fortune.

On November 9, it became known that FTX had an $8 billion hole in its balance sheet. Bankman-Fried reached out to investors, saying his company needed $4 billion to remain solvent. Binance backed out of the deal to acquire FTX following due diligence.

To find out what implications await the crypto market as a result of FTX’s collapse, see GetBlock Magazine’s article.

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