On Dec. 27, 2022, a number of onchain researchers noticed that funds connected to Alameda Research and FTX have moved and have been swapped for other tokens. Reports show the hacker known as the ‘FTX Accounts Drainer,’ traded large sums of ERC20 tokens for digital assets like tether, ethereum, and bitcoin.

It seems whoever controls the funds that once were connected to Alameda and FTX is starting to move a large handful of ERC20 tokens. According to the OXT onchain researcher Ergo, on Twitter, Alameda-linked addresses started to swap ERC20s for ETH and USDT. “Alameda ETH addresses are digging around in the sofa for spare change and swapping bits ERC20s for ETH/USDT,” Ergo tweeted. “ETH and USDT then funneled through instant exchangers. Rings some major alarm bells,” the onchain researcher added.

In response to Ergo’s tweet, the onchain sleuth Zachxbt replied and said: “the funds are being swapped for [bitcoin],” while sharing four different BTC addresses (1, 2, 3, 4). All four of those addresses were sent roughly 11.9 bitcoin worth close to $199K using today’s BTC exchange rates. In the thread published by Ergo, someone asked if the fund movements likely derived from the liquidators. Zachxbt dismissed the idea when he tweeted: “don’t think they would use Fixedfloat or Changenow.”

(by Jamie Redman)