Allegations of Misuse of Funds in Alameda Research’s Bank Accounts
An expert witness in the ongoing trial of Sam Bankman-Fried testified that transactions to and from Alameda Research’s bank accounts revealed the company’s use of FTX customer funds for various purposes. Peter Easton, an accounting professor, analyzed bank and crypto transactions between FTX, Alameda Research, and third parties. He confirmed that customer money had been spent.
FTX Investments and Real Estate Purchases
Easton highlighted several instances where FTX used customer funds for investments and real estate purchases. For example, when FTX invested $400 million in Modulo Capital, the funds were transferred from Alameda Research accounts using customer money. Similar chains of transactions were observed for investments in Genesis Digital Assets, SkyBridge Capital, Dave, K5 PR firm, Anthropic AI startup, Robinhood shares, and FTX’s own shares from Binance. Real estate purchases in the Bahamas also followed this pattern.
Political Donations and Loan Repayments
FTX’s political donations were also funded using customer deposits. These donations were processed through the accounts of FTX executives like Nishad Singh or Ryan Salame. The contributions included support for political action committees GMI, Mind the Gap (led by Bankman-Fried’s mother), and Guarding Against Pandemics (led by Bankman-Fried’s brother).
In addition to these allegations, Easton revealed that when Alameda repaid money borrowed from institutional lenders such as BlockFi, Bitgo, Genesis, Abra, Maple Finance, Anchorage, Celsius, Nexo, Voyager, TrueFi, and Ledn, some of the payouts came from FTX customer deposits shortly before the transactions.
Hot Take: Misuse of Customer Funds Raises Concerns
The testimony of the expert witness in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried raises serious concerns about the alleged misuse of customer funds by Alameda Research and FTX. The transactions analyzed by Peter Easton suggest that customer money was used for purposes other than their intended use, including investments, real estate purchases, and political donations. If proven true, these actions would have significant implications for the reputation and trustworthiness of the companies involved. It remains to be seen how this trial will unfold and what consequences it will have for the crypto industry as a whole.
By
By
By
By