Benzinga - Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s affiliated trading firm Alameda Research accumulated large amounts of tokens over the course of a year before FTX announced it would list them, according to an investigation of open blockchain data by analytics company Argus.
Blockchain data analysis has revealed that Alameda held roughly $60 million worth of tokens across 18 listings of coins connected to the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) blockchain on the days that FTX said it would be listing tokens between the beginning of 2021 and March of this year, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Publicly available information raises questions on the timing of token listings by exchanges across the whole cryptocurrency industry, with traders standing to gain by buying coins before postings and selling them after.
If and when Alameda sold the tokens monitored by Argus is unknown.
Also read: Why FTX's Collapse Is The Crypto Equivalent Of The 2008 Lehman Brothers Crisis
FTX Had 60 Tokens Listed At The Time
According to Argus, FTX listed around 60 tokens based on the Ethereum blockchain at that time.
“What we see is they’ve basically almost always in the month leading up to it bought into a position that they previously didn’t. It’s quite clear there's something in the market telling them they should be buying things they previously hadn’t,” the report quoted Omar Amjad, co-founder of Argus, saying.
FTX Used Customer Funds To Fund Risky Bets FTX used customer assets worth billions to support risky trading bets by its sister trading firm, Alameda Research, which ultimately led to the exchange's collapse.
According to a report, former FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried disclosed to an investor that Alameda Research owes FTX $10 billion and the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange lent its sister firm users' funds for risky trading purposes.
The report quoted Bankman-Fried describing this decision as a “poor judgment call.”
FTX had $16 billion in total client assets; therefore, FTX lent more than half of its customers' cash to Alameda.
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