An on-chain investigation has uncovered crypto wallets associated with Sam Bankman-Fried, the former co-founder of FTX and fugitive, who transferred numerous unreported transactions across multiple blockchains. The transfers were observed by Conor Grogan, the head of Coinbase, however most of the movements took place on December 28.
On-chain Searches Uncover Suspicious Movements Associated with FTX, SBF, and Alameda
On December 28, a week prior to the arrest of Bankman-Fried, the Chain detectives discovered a variety of funds linked to the FTX. Alameda Research wallets were being moved. Two days after this, Bankman-Fried tweeted: “None of these are me. I do not have the funds and cannot move them.” He was quickly bombarded with questions when he tweeted on December 30th: “How does the address you have identified as yours transfer funds?”
“I think it’s likely that several legitimate FTX branches have access to these funds; hopefully that is what is happening here,” SBF replied. “If not, hopefully someone will soon. If regulators are interested, I’d be glad to assist them.”
Following the discovery of the outgoing transactions connected to FTX a week ago, the Chain investigators found out that Conor Grogan, the Coinbase executive who often tweets about chain activity, noticed large amounts of SBF-related tokens being moved across various blockchains. These blockchains included Polygon, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Arbitrum, and Avalanche. Addresses and coins such as MATIC, AVAX, USDC, USDT, BTCB, WBTC, SPELL, PTP, and MDX were involved.
“SBF (or someone with access to their wallets) likely transferred $10 million in previously unreported transactions across the Avalanche, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon blockchains,” Grogan tweeted. Activity on 01/02 and 01/03 was also observed, and Grogan stated that he “found a receiving wallet worth more than $30,000,000.” After checking different blockchains and going through all addresses associated with SBF, Grogan added that “private keys for ETH work on other EVM chains.”
In addition to Grogan’s tweets, the on-chain investigator Ergo tweeted more information about Bitcoin movements linked to FTX on January 4th. “Probable bankruptcy team activity,” Ergo said. “ETH tx resets WBTC deposit address, different from FTX/FTXUS sweep… FTX and Alameda asset segregation? The address has 502 BTC from Deribit withdrawals.” At the time of writing, the address has an approximate balance of 3499 BTC, excluding the original 502 BTC.
Moreover, Ergo shared a tweet showing that the funds had been sent to a Wasabi wallet. “The bankruptcy team has not yet revealed their addresses,” Ergo said. “But more chain evidence that instant swap addresses don’t behave the same way as ‘legitimate FTX legs.’”
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