The cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which filed for bankruptcy last Friday, is investigating suspicious transactions from its accounts after crypto researchers noticed withdrawals of more than $663 million in various tokens on Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and Avalanche that may have been the result of a hack.
According to blockchain analysis provider Elliptic, $477 million out of $663 million is suspected to have been stolen, while the remainder is believed to have been moved into secure storage by FTX themselves.
FTX general counsel Ryne Miller said in a tweet that the company “initiated precautionary steps” and moved all its digital assets to cold storage.
“Investigating abnormalities with wallet movements related to consolidation of ftx balances across exchanges - unclear facts as other movements not clear,” the company wrote.
The news of a possible hack first appeared in FTX’s Telegram Channel.
“FTX has been hacked. All funds seem to be gone. FTX apps are malware. Delete them,” the channel admin wrote.
Elliptic says that there appears to have been a compromise involving the movement of $278 million on Ethereum, $106 million on Solana, $89 million on BSC and $4 million on Avalanche. Over $220 million of the tokens have been swapped for ETH or DAI through decentralized exchanges, which is a common tactic used by hackers to prevent the stolen assets from being sized.
Separately, $186 million across more than a hundred different tokens was moved to a crypto wallet belonging to FTX.
Once the third largest crypto exchange by trading volume, FTX collapsed over the past week as its native token, FTT, lost over 80% of its value. The firm has now filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder and chief executive, who also managed assets through his trading company, Alameda Research, announced his resignation. Last week’s report from CoinDesk revealed that a bulk of Alameda’s assets consisted of FTT tokens, a sister token from FTX. While not confirmed, it is suspected that FTX used its clients’ funds to carry out highly leveraged trades on Alameda.
The US Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are now investigating the activities of FTX.