FTX halts ERC-20, Solana, and Tron withdrawals

FTX has stopped processing withdrawals of ERC-20 tokens, Solana, and Tron since earlier this morning. This comes amidst a renewed focus on the financial position of FTX, Alameda Research, and the extended Sam Bankman-Fried universe.

These final withdrawals were all made at 10:59 AM UTC this morning:

The last ERC-20 transaction was a transfer of Compound.
The last SPL transfer on Solana was of Star Atlas token.
The last TRC-20 transfer on Tron was of Tether token.

Ethereum withdrawals have continued to process. The largest withdrawals, totaling over 73,500 ether (worth over $116 million), were withdrawn to cryptocurrency lending platform Nexo since yesterday morning. Other chains have continued to process withdrawals for FTX.

FTX has appeared to stop processing on-chain withdrawals on Ethereum, Solana, and Tron since roughly 3 hours ago.
— Steven (@Dogetoshi) November 8, 2022

It was recently reported that Alameda Research’s balance sheet was disproportionately weighted towards an over-valued FTX Token (FTT) position, which led to Binance reconsidering its ownership of FTT and announcing it intended to liquidate its position.

This led to Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, announcing it would purchase the FTT from Binance for $22. However, this level was blown through overnight — FTT is worth $14.59 at time of writing. The market cap has fallen over $1 billion in the last 24 hours.

Protos has reached out to FTX for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.

This afternoon, FTX asked for our help. There is a significant liquidity crunch. To protect users, we signed a non-binding LOI, intending to fully acquire https://t.co/BGtFlCmLXB and help cover the liquidity crunch. We will be conducting a full DD in the coming days.
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) November 8, 2022

Update 4:15 PM UTC, Nov. 8th: As we published this article Binance and FTX announced that pending due diligence Binance will be acquiring FTX in order to help with a “liquidity crunch”. Neither FTX nor Binance have provided an explanation for how an exchange which should always have full assets to cover user deposits experienced a liquidity crisis. However, Protos research has been unable to locate cold wallets for certain FTX assets including Ethereum.

For more informed news, follow us on Twitter and Google News or listen to our investigative podcast Innovated: Blockchain City.

Source: https://protos.com/ftx-halts-erc-20-solana-and-tron-withdrawals/