Coinbase’s Director of Product Technique & Enterprise Operations and On-chain Sleuth Conor Grogan lately highlighted a few of Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) lesser-known actions. These have been primarily on-chain transactions that the FTX founder carried out, however they have been by no means delivered to mild throughout his trial.
How Sam Bankman-Fried On-Chain Transactions Harmed Crypto
Grogan revealed in an X (previously Twitter) put up that Bankman-Fried, via Alameda Analysis, bought $75 million of staked ETH (stETH) in January 2022. This led to an enormous depeg occasion, which triggered the financial institution run on bankrupt crypto lender Celsius. That was additionally the tail occasion that introduced concerning the collapse of the bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC).
Bankman-Fried can be stated to have used FTX buyer funds to buy a bunch of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that didn’t essentially have any utility, together with CarolineDAO NFTs. CarolineDAO proudly claimed to be “SimpDAO for Caroline Ellison,” the previous CEO of Alameda Analysis and Bankman-Fried’s ex-girlfriend.
Grogan additional revealed that Bankman-Fried and Alameda Analysis engaged in 1000’s of wash-trading transactions to spice up the visibility of SBF’s holdings. Wash buying and selling is a type of market manipulation during which the identical dealer buys and sells an asset to provide the impression that there’s demand for it.
Alameda, being a market maker and with FTX clients’ funds at its disposal, had sufficient capital to control the market. Sooner or later, the buying and selling agency was stated to have had extra buying and selling exercise than MEV bots.
One other manner Sam Bankman-Fried tried to play the market was when the FTX founder’s ‘check’ NFT was created and bought for $270,000, with Grogan speculating that it was most definitely purchased by SBF himself utilizing clients’ funds. Bankman-Fried was additionally at it once more when he obtained 2 million RAY tokens and proceeded to promote a part of them, regardless that they have been meant to be vested.
Extra On Bankman-Fried’s On-Chain Exercise
Shiba Inu (SHIB) was additionally caught within the combine as Bankman-Fried is claimed to have helped the token’s worth skyrocket whereas constructing a big place. He ultimately offloaded his SHIB tokens, which triggered the meme coin to plummet. Curiously, this occurred when FTX had simply expanded its SHIB perpetual, that means SBF presumably shorted the meme coin, too.
SHIB wasn’t the one crypto token that Sam Bankman-Fried aggressively dumped. Grogan revealed that the FTX founder offloaded 35,000 SUSHI tokens whereas mendacity about not having dumped or shortened the coin.
The FTT token he “invented” additionally performed a large position in his on-chain transactions as he wrapped and rewrapped the change’s utility token to realize extra liquidity. That explains why Sam Bankman-Fried, virtually each week, publicly shilled FTT and pretended to TWAP the token.
Grogan additionally talked about that Bankman-Fried wasn’t lively on-chain till the crimes began. Alameda wallets, specifically, weren’t very lively till FTX’s Director of Engineering Nishad Singh created the bug, which enabled the buying and selling agency to withdraw limitless sums from FTX’s account.
FTT Token rice appears to be like robust at $1.92 | Supply: FTTUSDT on Tradingview.com
Featured picture from Unchained Crypto, chart from Tradingview.com
