According to FTX, previous CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lacked the authorization to transfer the money.
On December 30, FTX and its related creditors claimed that roughly $300 million in funds that the primary securities regulator of the Bahamas had confiscated had been moved without authorization.
The debtors claimed that former FTX CEO Sam-Bankman Fried and his accomplice Gary Wang were given instructions by the Bahamas Securities Commission (SCB) to transfer $296 million in digital assets to a Fireblocks cryptocurrency wallet under the SCB’s custody.
The reportedly moved assets by Bankman-Fried include 195 million FTT, 1,938 ETH, and several unimportant cryptocurrencies.
While the value of such assets was $296 million in November, it is currently only $167 million. Although the SCB owns the aforementioned assets, FTX pointed out that the regulator might not be able to sell this many FTT tokens at the current market pricing, or perhaps at all.
The SCB “acknowledged that it arranged these transfers,” according to FTX and its affiliated debtors, who also claim that their charge is supported by the facts at hand. But the SCB’s statement from yesterday made no mention of FTX’s assertions.
FTX maintains that Bankman-Fried, Wang, and the Bahamas Securities Commission were not authorized to seize the relevant assets. By filing for bankruptcy, the corporation claims it would now make an effort to recover the assets and provide them to its creditors.
The $296 million move might have been a portion of the $3.5 billion in assets that The Bahamas Securities Commission (SCB) acknowledged owning yesterday. These assets, which allegedly came from FTX Digital Markets, were handed over to the regulator on November 12 at the request of the nation’s highest court. In order to “clear up any doubt,” FTX asked the SCB today to specify which crypto assets it had confiscated and how it arrived at their values.
Additionally, FTX claimed that the sole FTX-related enterprise subject to Bahamas Security Commission regulation is FTX Digital Markets. It was mentioned that FTX Digital markets do not run the FTX.com exchange and did not initially possess the crypto that was confiscated.
Sam Bankman-Fried, incidentally, today denied transferring money from a location connected to Alameda Research. These transfers of money, which were only about $1.7 million, took place this week. The hundreds of millions of dollars that he is said to have assisted in transferring to the Bahamas Securities Commission in November appear to be unrelated to those monies as a result.
