FTX Hacker Becomes 27th Largest Ethereum Whale

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The primary account involved in the FTX hack now holds over 250K Ethereum (ETH), making it the 27th largest Ethereum whale.

Following a series of enigmatic swaps and transfers, the primary account associated with the FTX hack, the FTX Accounts Drainer, currently holds 250,735 ETH valued at $302.6M, making it the 27th largest Ethereum whale as of press time, per data from Etherscan.

Blockchain security company Peck Shield highlighted the development Saturday. The surveillance platform has been tracking the swaps and transfers carried out by the multiple accounts associated with the hacker to keep the community up to speed with the movement of the funds.

Over 11 wallet addresses have been identified associating with the primary address FTX Accounts Drainer, with all these auxiliary wallets making swaps and offloading all assets to the primary address. This has dramatically increased the ETH holdings of the primary wallet. The latest inflow involved 9,263 ETH worth $11M from an unidentified wallet.

Besides its ETH holdings, the hacker holds up to 8,184 Paxos Gold (PAXG) valued at $14.2M. This brings the account’s total holdings to a little above $317.8M on the Ethereum network. Recall that multiple reports put the loss suffered from the FTX hack at an estimated $400M.

Meanwhile, on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the FTX Accounts Drainer wallet currently holds about 190.5 BNB, valued at $51.2K. Additionally, the wallet possesses $1.6M worth of DAI stablecoin as of press time.

The community witnessed multiple swaps involving the conversion of up to 44,235 BNB to 3,000 ETH and $5M worth of stablecoins. The stablecoins worth $5M were consequently swapped for 6.2K ETH. All 9.2K ETH resulting from the swaps were transferred to the primary address on Ethereum.

Recall that The Crypto Basic previously highlighted a similar series of swaps and transfers, which saw all resulting Ethereum tokens dumped into the FTX Accounts Drainer wallet. The purpose of this mysterious behavior is little known, but certain market watchers assert that the hacker plans to manipulate the market with the ETH holdings.

Bahamian Authorities Mastermind Behind Hack

With the hacker’s identity unknown since the hack, reports have surfaced suggesting that Bahamian authorities masterminded the move in an attempt to seize FTX assets amidst its insolvency predicament. On Friday, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas released an official statement via Twitter, claiming responsibility for the action, as it noted that it exercised its jurisdictional powers to transfer the FTX funds to a digital wallet it controls for “safekeeping.” Reuters also highlighted the statement from the Commission.

The Commission further noted that, in the coming days and weeks, it plans to engage other authorities across multiple jurisdictions on the necessary steps to take to decide on the interest of affected stakeholders, creditors, and clients.

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