CoinMetrics Research Director: Alameda Research was on the brink of bankruptcy in Q2, with over a billion FTT tokens pledged triggering the crisis.

The head of research at data analytics firm CoinMetrics, Lucas Nuzzi, revealed on Twitter that FTT has a close asset collateral relationship with Alameda Research, and speculated that Alameda Research was already facing bankruptcy crisis prior to the 3AC incident based on data analysis.

Large-scale FTT Transfer Process on-chain

Lucas Nuzzi provided evidence on Twitter, through charts, to illustrate the potential funding from FTX to Alameda Research in the second quarter of this year.

Approximately 40 days ago, around 173 million FTT tokens, valued at 4.19 billion USD at the time, started moving on-chain. By 9/28, FTT tokens worth 8.6 billion USD were transferred on-chain.

Lucas Nuzzi stated that this was the largest single-day transfer of FTT tokens ever and one of the largest ERC20 token transfers observed by CoinMetrics to date.

After examining all the transactions on that day, Lucas Nuzzi discovered a peculiar transaction interacting with the FTT ICO smart contract. This smart contract from 2019 "automatically" distributed 173 million FTT tokens, with Alameda Research being the recipient.

Lucas Nuzzi indicated that this shows a longstanding connection between Alameda Research and FTX from the very beginning, with Alameda Research evidently participating in the FTT ICO.

What followed was intriguing, as Alameda Research then sent these 173 million FTT tokens to the address of the creator of the FTT ERC 20 token deployer, an address controlled by someone within FTX.

In summary, Alameda Research automatically unlocked FTT tokens from the ICO address and transferred them to FTX.

Close Relationship Between Alameda and FTX Internally

After observing the aforementioned actions, Lucas Nuzzi attempted to speculate on the underlying reasons.

He believes that when 3AC encountered difficulties, Alameda Research was also on the verge of bankruptcy. They managed to raise funds by pledging the 173 million FTT tokens unlocked four months later from FTX. If Alameda Research fails to repay the loan after the FTT tokens unlock in September, these tokens will be liquidated.

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Lucas Nuzzi stated that if FTX had allowed Alameda Research to go bankrupt in May, it would have led to the liquidation of these tokens unlocked in September. Additionally, in order to maintain a good collateral ratio for FTT, SBF has also maintained a responsible and solvent institutional image in the past to help boost the price of FTT.

Furthermore, Lucas Nuzzi pointed out that perhaps Binance had long been aware of the asset relationship between Alameda and FTX. As a major holder of FTT, they may have started intentionally disrupting the market to force FTX into a liquidity crunch.