On Friday, SamBank Manfleet’s bankrupt trading company Alameda deposited more than $30 million into Binance.
The transfer immediately raised questions about Alameda’s assets, given that Bankman Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for orchestrating a fraudulent scheme at FTX related to Alameda’s research.
Specifically, if nearly all of these bankruptcy estate assets are to be returned to the victims of Bankmanfried’s scheme, is there any money left?
Unfortunately, the finances of FTX and its sister trading companies have been in turmoil since the conglomerate filed for bankruptcy in November 2022.
As a result, figuring out how much FTX and Alameda research is still leading to a bit of a rabbit hole.
Bankruptcy is a mess worse than Enron
John J. Ray III, who cleaned up the Enron mess and other major bankruptcies like Nortel Networks, explained The accounting situation at FTX is much worse.
Executives like Bankman-Fried kept loose and incomplete records on numerous transfers between FTX, Alameda Research, Affiliated Companies, and Labor.
FTX once held over $2 billion in FTT tokens, but currently holds less than $250 million. Bankman-Fried also repeatedly borrowed from unsolicited FTX customers to fund Alameda Research trades.
For context, Arkham Intelligence estimates that FTX wallets excluding Alameda are worth less than $600 million, up from a peak value of over $64 billion.
Apart from that, Alameda Research’s crypto wallet holds $1.2 billion worth of digital assets – Most of which consists of Solana (SOL), which is worth about $1 billion.
But Alameda’s massive Sol Holdings is no stranger to Friday’s transfer sect.
Instead, a Bitcoin (BTC) address controlled by Alameda and labeled “WBTC Merchant Deposit” was received and immediately sent 250 BTC worth approximately $30 million.
While the dollar amounts are significant, moves from FTX and Alameda research are not uncommon. This year alone, there have been dozens of transfers from FTX and Alameda research wallets.
Two apparent explanations for Alameda’s research transfer
First of all, FTX is actively repaying its victims.
In fact, this year alone, billions of dollars worth of repayments were made in April, May, and September, including repayments to victims from interactions such as Kraken and Bitgo.
According to the claimant’s instructions, conversion through an exchange such as Binance or elsewhere is required to pay an equivalent amount as of the bankruptcy filing date.
Importantly, recipients are located in various countries around the world and are often the largest exchanges in many international jurisdictions.
Read more: What did Alameda Research do with $400 billion in USDT?
Second, FTX Bankruptcy Estate has incurred significant legal costs. Payments to the various lawyers and contractors assisting with the bankruptcy process require conversion through the exchange of digital assets.
Post-bankruptcy, FTX Bankruptcy Real Estate holds more than $16 billion in assets.
After significant legal costs, billions of dollars worth of repayments to victims, and volatile digital asset prices, Arkham Intelligence We estimate $590 million worth of crypto assets In addition to FTX, Alameda Research will add $1.2 billion.
These digital asset holdings are in addition to cash, real estate, equity investments, and other assets recovered by insolvency teams.
