$400 Million Allegedly Stolen From FTX
More than $600 million in cryptocurrency left the wallets of bankrupt crypto company FTX late Friday, with no clear explanation as to why.
As users began reporting sudden drops in balances to $0, and analysts began tracking millions of dollars that appeared to be exiting the exchange, FTX general counsel Ryne Miller posted a statement on the company’s Telegram channel.
“FTX was hacked. The chat is open. Do not go to the FTX website as you may download Trojans. Note that some funds have been withdrawn.”
Miller also posted a statement on Twitter:
“We are investigating anomalies with the movement of funds related to FTX consolidating balances on various exchanges […] We will share more information as soon as we have it.”
On Twitter, members of the cryptocurrency community immediately suggested that the funds had been siphoned off in some sort of attack, pointing to the fact that some of the transactions appeared to include notes containing obscene jokes and insults directed at FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried as evidence.
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Others have speculated that the leaks may have been coordinated by a member of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle, pointing out that the simultaneous and sophisticated hacking attacks on FTX and FTX US are indicative of a potential inside job.
So far, blockchain analyst ZachXBT has pegged the amount of cryptocurrency in circulation at $383 million.
Multiple former FTX employees confirmed to me they do not recognize these transfers for ~$383m https://t.co/YcqT0jrqIQ
— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) November 12, 2022
ZachXBT also said that stablecoin issuer Tether has blacklisted portions of USDT linked to the address involved in the transfers, which Etherscan has now labeled the “FTX Accounts Drainer.”
Alexander Stefanov
Reporter at CoinsPress
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coinspress and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
