What Happened: Alameda Research received $13 million worth of crypto in the last 24 hours, according to transactions spotted by PeckShield.
The blockchain security firm said that $6 million worth of USDT and $2.5 million worth of ETH were transferred from Bitfinex’s hot wallet.
Is There a Cause for Alarm? Not really. A spokesperson for Bitfinex told CoinDesk that the funds were transferred as part of a recovery process in Alameda’s bankruptcy proceedings.
“Alameda had an account on Bitfinex and Bitfinex is collaborating with the liquidators to return what’s left,” said the Bitfinex spokesperson.
The wallet now holds $183 million worth of altcoins and $26 million in ETH.
The Mistrust stems from a series of mysterious transfers made by Alameda-associated wallets, which liquidators haven’t taken claim for. On Dec. 28, blockchain analysts pointed to at least 30 known Alameda wallets that sprang into action after weeks of dormancy.
These wallets moved at least $1 million worth of crypto through coin mixers in 24 hours – a move that would hardly qualify as the normal course of action for liquidators handling the funds.
For many in the crypto community, the conclusion was that former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried himself was behind these transfers, considering all of this took place just days after he was granted bail. However, Bankman-Fried denied these allegations in a tweet shortly after.
His bail conditions were then modified to specifically restrict his access to FTX and Alameda’s funds – something his lawyers are now contesting in court.
Better Safe Than Sorry: No one is taking any chances when it comes to anything associated with Alameda-controlled entities.
The lack of clarity behind who controls some of the funds has led some protocols to employ somewhat drastic precautionary measures. For instance, DeFi bridge Stargate now plans to reissue all of its native STG token – 10% of which is owned by Alameda – on concerns that the compromised wallet poses a “significant threat” to its protocol-owned liquidity (POL).
Alameda Liquidators have shared little information about their own actions, including moving funds across the blockchain. Aside from the obvious concerns that a rouge actor is responsible for moving around the firm’s funds, some analysts have suggested that the liquidators themselves are not making the best decisions when it comes to the firm’s funds.
On Jan. 16, blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence found that one wallet under the control of Alameda liquidators incurred at least $11.5 million worth of losses, of which at least $4 million was entirely preventable.
Over the past two weeks being under Liquidator control, the account incurred significant losses:
Largest single liquidation: $4.85M
Total liquidated amount: $11.5M
Preventable losses: $4M+— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) January 16, 2023
Instead of closing several DeFi positions at risk of liquidation, the liquidators mistakenly removed extra collateral from the wallets in an attempt to close the borrow positions. This resulted in the loan being liquidated twice, which resulted in a loss of 4.05 wrapped BTC.
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- Source: https://unchainedpodcast.com/alameda-received-13m-from-bitfinex-and-others-overnight/
