A series of high-value transfers from wallets associated with Sam Bankman-Fried haves raised suspicions.
In a Twitter thread Wednesday, Coinbase director Conor Grogan shared previously unreported transactions made from Bankman-Fried connected wallets across blockchains outside Ethereum.
SBF (or someone with access to his wallets) most likely transferred $10s of millions in previously unreported transactions across Avalanche, BSC, Arbitrum, and Polygon blockchains
-There was also recent activity on 1/02 and 1/03
-I found a receiving wallet with $30+ million— Conor (@jconorgrogan) January 4, 2023
His analysis revealed that 12 wallets tied to the former FTX chief had moved close to $144,000 worth of assets to different destinations. Some of these transfers were made as recently as Jan. 2 and Jan. 3, found Grogan.
The recent movement of funds comes after Bankman-Fried explicitly denied being behind these transfers, saying in a Dec. 31 tweet that he no longer had access to them.
In his arraignment hearing earlier this week, where the FTX founder pleaded “not guilty” to the charges against him, Judge Lewis Kaplan amended the terms of his bail to prohibit him from making any transfers of FTX or Alameda associated assets.
“The FTX bankruptcy estate could really benefit the public by being explicit which wallet addresses are currently under the control of proper authorities. This could all just be observations of a legal process, in which case its just undue noise. Or it could be theft,” tweeted Grogan on Wednesday.
According to him, a particularly interesting recipient of funds was a wallet funded by transfers on Arbitrum, that received $10 million worth of ETH two days after FTX declared bankruptcy.
The wallet that received funds on Arbitrum is especially interesting
It was previously seeded by 1266 ETH on November 13th, 2 days after FTX declared bankruptcy.
It has 10s of millions across other chains (BSC, FTM, etc) as well
You can view it here:https://t.co/JE9MTAYwX8 pic.twitter.com/hD4C41Ch0R
— Conor (@jconorgrogan) January 4, 2023
He believes it is unlikely that these assets are being moved by authorities, based on the timing of transfers.
It is increasingly unlikely to me that these assets are in the hands of authorities:
-The $30M+ wallet was seeded on November 12th
-This same day the Bahamian commission did seize assets- but those were "in a single digital wallet" (that is not this one) – see FTX announcement pic.twitter.com/vrCqxU4xwa— Conor (@jconorgrogan) January 4, 2023