There was a transfer of funds from the crypto wallets associated with Alameda Research, a trading company and sister company of FTX, just days after its former CEO, Sam Bankman Fried, was released on a $250 million bond.
This move sparked community curiosity, but what really caught the attention of the community was the way in which these funds were transferred.
It was discovered that the Alameda wallet was exchanging small amounts of ERC20s for ETH/USDT, and then funneling the Ether and USDT through instant exchangers and mixers.
For example, a wallet address starting with 0x64e9 received over 600 ETH from wallets belonging to Alameda, part of which was converted to USDT while the rest of the transaction was sent to ChangeNow.
On-chain analyst ZachXBT reported that the Alameda wallet ultimately swapped the funds for Bitcoin using decentralized exchanges such as FixedFloat and ChangeNow, platforms that are often used by hackers and exploiters to obscure their transaction routes.
The ongoing drama surrounding FTX has had a new twist every day, and the latest transfer of funds from these crypto wallets has raised concerns within the community.
Many speculate that the pattern in which these funds are being swapped resembles that of an exploiter, but given Bankman-Fried’s known criminal history, some suspect it could be an inside job to drain whatever remains in those wallets.
