In the protracted and gloomy drama involving FTX and SBF, it would seem that we have finally heard some positive news about the assets of users that the criminal mastermind was spending frivolously.The Financial and Regulatory Authority of the Bahamas (Securities Commission of the Bahamas) announced on December 29 that it is temporarily holding FTX assets with a value of $3.5 billion based on market pricing at the time of transfer in order to deliver them to customers and creditors who own them.According to the statement released by the regulator, this was done out of concern that there was a danger of immediate dissipation of the assets owing to concerns raised by Bankman-Fried, which included cyberattacks on the exchange.According to an affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court of the Bahamas by the commission’s executive director, Christina Rolle, Sam Bankman-Fried and Gary Wang no longer had access to the tokens that had been transferred or frozen once the transfer was completed.The web of links between the now-defunct FTX.com, which is registered locally as FTX Digital Markets Ltd., and its trading subsidiary, Alameda Research, is presently being investigated by the authorities in the Bahamas.Soon after the firm announced that it would be filing for bankruptcy, the authorities in the Bahamas, where the company’s headquarters were located, appointed liquidators to wind down FTX’s worldwide trading activity.At the beginning of this month, attorneys for the cryptocurrency exchange FTX fought against a demand for internal papers from its Bahamian firm. Their argument was that they did not trust the Bahamian authorities with information that could be used to steal assets from the insolvent company.CFTC’s Latest Findings on FTX-AlamedaIn a complaint filed on December 13 by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, it is alleged that Bankman-Fried instructed FTX officials to transfer about $8 billion in liabilities from Alameda to an unidentified client account on FTX’s computers.According to the complaint, this enabled Alameda to conceal its FTX deficit. But the account was excluded from liquidation features and enjoyed the same other benefits as Alameda accounts.Caroline Ellison pled guilty to seven counts of federal fraud on December 18. The allegations against her included conspiracy to conduct wire fraud on FTX clients and money laundering. Additionally, Gary Wang pled guilty to four counts of the same offenses. Each of them faces decades behind bars, and their arrest and incarceration will hopefully lead to SBF’s own detention and eventual incarceration as well.
