Alameda lost $1M in liquidations: report

Quick Take

  • Crypto intelligence firm Arkham noted over $1 million in asset liquidations from Sam Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research.
  • The news comes after $72,000 of Alameda funds were liquidated on Aave after consolidating funds into a single wallet on Jan. 12.

Troubled crypto trading firm Alameda Research lost over $1 million in assets from liquidation last night, according to a report that the crypto intelligence firm Arkham shared with The Block.

The account initially held 9,000 ETH worth $10.8 million, with $20 million USDC and $4 million DAI as collateral. In all, the account's net balance was $15.2 million.

But a Jan. 14 report from Arkham shows that the account was "forcibly reduced," and $1.2 USDC was liquidated for 731 ETH. The account now maintains a $1.1 million ETH short against $1.14 million USDC and a net balance of $300,000.

"Surprisingly, transactions out of the wallet were made before and during liquidation, indicating that whoever was in control of the wallet either was unable to understand how to close out the positions, or was simply unwilling to," Arkham said in the report.

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The news comes after $72,000 of Alameda funds were liquidated on Aave after consolidating funds into a single wallet on Jan. 12. Twitter users noticed Alameda funds changing wallets, with some tying the movement to Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried. However, Bankman-Fried ended his social media hiatus on Dec. 30, 2022, which started when he was arrested in the Bahamas on Dec. 12, 2022, to affirm that he did not move Alameda funds.

Disclaimer: Beginning in 2021, Michael McCaffrey, the former CEO and majority owner of The Block, took a series of loans from founder and former FTX and Alameda CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. McCaffrey resigned from the company in December 2022 after failing to disclose those transactions


© 2023 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

About Author

MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020 — joining just before bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering any and all crypto news but with a penchant toward NFT, metaverse, web3 gaming, funding, crime, hack and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.

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