Alameda Research Sold its Ether-Based Token Holdings for Bitcoin in Last Day

Days prior to the action, Sam Bankman-Fried was granted a $250 million bond and allowed to leave custody.

Millions of dollars' worth of tokens held by Sam Bankman-troubled Fried's trading business Alameda Research were sold late on Wednesday, as the company's founders are being investigated for their roles in the failure of Alameda and FTX.

cryptocurrency research firm Arkham Intelligence, tokens from wallets connected to Alameda were traded in the open market for about $1.7 million over the course of several hours on Wednesday. Some Crypto Twitter users expressed fear that the sales would precipitate a sharp decline in the pricing of certain tokens.

According to on-chain data, various Ethereum-based tokens, including USD Coin (USDC), dai (DAI), curve (CRV), ether (ETH), convex (CVX), and others, were collected into just two wallets before being sold for tether stablecoins (USDT).

The on-chain data reveals that the transaction values ranged from a few ether to over 15 ether. On-chain detective ZachXBT reported in a tweet that the holdings were then changed into bitcoin via swapping services like FixedFloat and ChangeNow.

Alameda still has about $112 million in various cryptocurrencies, down from $140 million held in mid-November, according to Arkham Intelligence data, which CoinDesk previously reported.

After it was discovered that Alameda, a hedge fund that Bankman-Fried also owned, was substantially supported by FTT tokens, virtual assets that FTX generated out of thin air, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy in November.