FTX Hires Financial Forensic Team To Probe Into the Missing Billions The new management at FTX has hired financial advisory company AlixPartners to investigate the matter
By Paromita Gupta •
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On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that FTX, the bankrupt crypto exchange, was hiring a financial forensic team to look into the missing billions. This move comes by the company's new management headed by John Ray III, the new CEO and chief restructuring officer of FTX.
For undertaking the probe, financial advisory company AlixPartners was chosen and would be led by Matt Jacques, former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief accountant. The firm will be conducting 'asset-tracing' to identify and recover the digital assets. It is also reported that Chainalysis , a blockchain analytics firm, was also enlisted for help.
The company's efforts will be complementing the work of the crypto exchange's bankruptcy counsel, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, restructuring adviser Alvarez & Marsal, and Nardello & Co, an investigative firm.
The stolen digital assets since then have been moved through various crypto mixers and exchanges to protect its whereabouts. The hackers are supposedly using the 'peel chaining', which means to subdivide the entire holding into small amounts across multiple wallets. The hacker has converted the stolen ETH to BTC and has reportedly spilt 180.000 ETH across 12 wallets. As per Cointelegraph, the FTX hacker was the 35th largest holder of ETH as of 16 November.
The concerns over one of the former biggest crypto exchanges cropped up when, on November 2, Coindesk, a bitcoin and digital currencies website, reported discrepancies in FTX and Alameda Research's financial health.
Since then, it's been nothing but a ride down the rabbit hole.
On November 11, FTX, Alameda, and its affiliates filed for bankruptcy. Nansen reported an outflow of a rough $266.3 million.
On November 12, Nansen reported that FTX and FTX US saw a cumulative outflow of $659 million in 24 hours. FTX claimed that it saw a series of unauthorized transactions and that its application and website were hacked.
As per a Reuters report, at least $1 billion of customer funds could be missing, while the potential gap could be anything between $1 billion to $2 billion. As per court papers, the 50 largest asset holders collectively are owed more than $3 billion.
FTX's infamous co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried has lost a shocking $32 billion. The exchange's collapse led to the cryptocurrency market becoming chaotic and doubtful, with FTX's customers seeking claims for the missing asset.
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