According to on-chain data, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly cashing out large amounts of cryptocurrency soon after being released on bail.
Violation of Bail Terms?
According to the on-chain investigation by DeFi educator BowTiedIguana, SBF cashed out $684,000 in crypto to an exchange in Seychelles while under house arrest.
BowTiedIguana, a DeFi analyst, took to Twitter on December 29 to report on a series of obfuscated wallet transactions allegedly linked to SBF, implying that the former FTX CEO may have violated release conditions by spending more than $1,000 without court permission.
According to BowTiedIguana’s analysis, on December 28, SBF’s public address (0xD5758) sent all remaining Ether to a newly created address (0x7386d). BowTiedIguana pointed out that in August 2020, SBF took over the address previously owned by Sushiswap creator Chef Nomi.
Within hours, 0x7386d received $367,000 in transfers from 32 addresses identified as Alameda Research wallets, plus an additional $322,000 from other wallets. According to the DeFi analyst, all funds were sent to a centralized crypto exchange in Seychelles and the crypto bridge RenBridge.
0x7386d transferred 519.5 Ether, or approximately $629,000, to 0x64e9B, which also received funds from Alameda Research addresses. BowTiedIguana also discovered five separate transactions totaling less than 51 ETH ($61,000) that were used to transfer funds to newly created wallets and then onwards to a Seychelles-based exchange.
Records Permanently Available
Furthermore, the SBF-linked wallet 0x64e9B transferred 200,000 Tether (USDT) in three tranches to the FixedFloat exchange. After revealing these transactions, BowTiedIguana declared that they would all be permanently available to law enforcement and the courts.
The transactions, whether confirmed to be related to SBF or not, do not necessarily imply that FTX founder has violated bail release conditions, according to some industry enthusiasts.
A number of online commenters speculated that SBF was Chef Nomi, the Sushiswap’s anonymous co-founder. Conor Grogan, Coinbase’s head of strategy, emphasized that many of the recent SBF-related transactions were heavily influenced by early Sushiswap activity.
In September 2020, SBF stated that he had nothing to do with the construction of Sushiswap.
The alleged SBF-related transactions took place about a week after SBF was granted bail on a $250 million bond secured by SBF’s parents and paid for with the equity in their home. SBF previously stated that after the collapse of FTX, he only had $100,000 in his bank account.
The announcement comes shortly after the Bahamas government announced that on November 12, local authorities seized $3.5 billion in cryptocurrency from FTX. After SBF warned about cyberattacks on FTX in mid-November, the authorities claimed that the action was taken to avoid the risk of “imminent dissipation” of funds.
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