The crypto exchange FTX is bankrupt, boss Bankman-Fried is gone – and the customers of the trading platform fear for their money. High-ranking insiders are now saying that the stock exchange founder has transferred several billion to another company. And there is no trace of at least one billion dollars.
After the bankruptcy of the crypto exchange FTX, at least one billion dollars in customer funds are said to have disappeared, according to two insiders. The exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, secretly transferred $10 billion in client funds from FTX to his own trading firm, Alameda Research, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. A part of this sum has since disappeared.
FTX was already known to have moved client funds to Alameda, however the amount was never quantified. Insiders, who held senior positions at FTX prior to the crypto exchange’s bankruptcy, estimated the missing amount to be between $1 billion and $2 billion. The financial hole was revealed on the basis of documents that Bankman-Fried shared with senior employees last Sunday.
The Bahamas-based company filed for bankruptcy on Friday after a rush of customer withdrawals earlier in the week. The 30-year-old ex-Wall Street trader Bankman-Fried was desperately looking for fresh capital to save the cryptocurrency trading platform, which was only founded three and a half years ago.
A rescue attempt with the competing exchange Binance failed. Several states then froze FTX assets to limit the impact of a stock market collapse on the industry. The cryptocurrency market was thrown into turmoil by the bankruptcy of the crypto exchange.
