"At Least 1.3 Trillion KRW of Customer Funds Disappeared After Being Transferred to FTX Affiliates"

"SoftBank Expects Approximately 130 Billion Won Loss"

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] According to foreign media citing anonymous sources on the 11th (local time), at least $1 billion (approximately 1.32 trillion KRW) of customer funds have disappeared from the global cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which declared bankruptcy due to a liquidity crisis.

According to the report, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, secretly transferred $10 billion (approximately 13.2 trillion KRW) worth of customer funds to the investment affiliate 'Alameda Research.' The core cause of this incident is identified as FTX supporting Alameda Research financially and suffering huge losses, and it is reported that most FTX executives were unaware of this.

Sources said that at a meeting on the 6th, founder Bankman-Fried showed the legal team a status report detailing how much FTX had loaned to Alameda and the usage of those funds, revealing that $10 billion of customer funds had been moved.

They explained that among these funds, $1 to 2 billion is neither in Alameda's remaining assets nor accounted for. One source stated that the missing amount is $1.7 billion (approximately 2.24 trillion KRW).

They also reported that Bankman-Fried had a so-called 'backdoor' in FTX's accounting system. The 'backdoor' could have allowed him to instruct changes to the company's financial records, avoiding external audits and other oversight, which might explain why the transfer of customer funds to Alameda did not trigger internal or external monitoring systems.

Bankman-Fried sent a text message to foreign media denying the allegations related to the $10 billion transfer. He claimed, "We did not move the funds secretly," and when asked about the disappearance of funds, he reportedly responded with three question marks "???". Additionally, he denied the suspicion of executing a backdoor.

On the same day, FTX filed for bankruptcy protection under Chapter 11 in Delaware court, and the 30-year-old billionaire founder Bankman-Fried, once called the "JP Morgan of the crypto world," stepped down from his position as CEO.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News, citing sources, reported that Japan's SoftBank Group also suffered a loss of about $100 million (approximately 130 billion KRW) from its investment in FTX. The source said SoftBank invested slightly less than $100 million in total and is expected to write off its entire stake in the next quarter.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.