Sam Bankman-Fried denies involvement in transfers from Alameda Research wallets

The founder of the failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), rejected involvement in moving assets from wallets linked to Alameda Research.

I believe it is likely the case that various legit legs of FTX have the ability to access these funds; hopefully that’s what’s happening here. If not, hopefully one steps in soon to do so. I would be happy to help advise regulators on this if any wanted.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 30, 2022

“It’s not me. I didn’t move these funds and can’t do so. I no longer have access to them,” SBF wrote in his first tweet since arrest in the Bahamas on December 13.

He conceded that representatives of FTX might access these funds. The founder of the exchange also expressed willingness to help regulators in investigating the incident.

On December 28, on-chain researchers recorded activity on Alameda Research wallets. Addresses linked to it swapped ERC-20 tokens for ETH and USDT, and then into Bitcoin (worth about $800,000), according to data from ZachXBT.

Users speculated that the assets could have been converted by liquidators, but the researcher noted that the operations involved platforms that are often used by hackers.

Update: First BTC that was received from the Alameda wallets was just deposited into Wasabi

127dc66668daebbad9ce0ee6d0c27bd4dd06c703c2ca2329914b4fb1fcbcca92 https://t.co/dNYp8AWUBD pic.twitter.com/lAqC3hVpgu

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) December 29, 2022

Earlier Reuters reported that SBF pleads guilty to charges of deceiving investors and misappropriating client funds. At the same time, WSJ sources исключили such a possibility.

DeFi analyst BowTiedIguana accused Bankman-Fried of moving $684,000 in cryptocurrency and violating the withdrawal terms under collateral of $250 million.

In December, former Alameda Research chief Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang pleaded guilty to charges related to the collapse of the exchange and agreed to cooperate with investigators. They also described deliberate deception.

By year’s end, Bloomberg sources said that the U.S. Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into the transfer of funds from FTX.

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