Alameda Research & FTX | The Truth Behind Rumors Market Manipulation

When involved in the crypto market, you must have heard about the fund-based investment method, for example with 3AC funds, people will consider investing into project have 3AC invest. In large funds, there is a fund called a venture capital fund: Alameda research specializes in investing in high-risk bets. And Alameda has a close relationship with FTX exchange, both have created many hits in the market. Most recently, it revolved around the news that Alameda was shorting the market after the depeg news appeared. So what is the truth, let’s find out with Coincu.

Some information about Alameda Research

Alameda Research is a leading principal trading firm. They use internally developed technology and their team’s deep crypto expertise to trade thousands of digital asset products: all major coins and altcoins, as well as their derivatives. Since 2017, they have relentlessly built a globally focused team and infrastructure with the ability to trade on all major exchanges and markets.

Portfolio of Alameda Research

Alameda Research’s portfolio of over 40 projects, large and small, shows the growth and impact of these ventures on the market. The fund’s movements were also noticed. Most recently, the news about Alameda and some large funds after swapping stETH to ETH, despite the loss, they transferred all to FTX to short the whole market. So the question is: Alameda swapped and then took a short immediately after the risk of depeg and the risk of Celsius, they short at price of $1800. Let’s dig into the on-chain data to better understand this issue.

Movements of Alameda in recent times.

Recently, there have been many cases in succession such as: stETH lose its peg, Celsius Facing, panic sell whole market. And some information has shown that Alameda and FTX are the ones behind the most benefits:

Alameda after swap stETH -> ETH despite the loss, they transfer all to FTX to short the whole market. So the question is: Alameda swapped and then took a short immediately after announcing the risk of depeg and the risk of Celsius, they short ETH at price of ~ $1800. What do you think about that?

Here are some on-chain data statistics for the days of the event stETH depeg, only in 7 days from 08/06 for the first time stETH lost peg to 0.97 to 14/06 Celsius announced to stop depositing and withdrawing assets, during this period Alameda has continuously swapped about $88m from stETH -> ETH and transferred a huge amount of stablecoins to the FTX exchange ~1b Stablecoins include: 560m USDC, 235m USDT, 120m BUSD, Alameda also transferred a large amount of other tokens such as: AXS, LINK, FTM, FTT total value up to ~300m. So the question is: In less than 7 days and the market is very unstable, Alameda transferred a large number of assets to FTX for what?

There are two possible solutions:

• Alameda transfer stablecoin to FTX to catch the bottom? and take profit altcoin.
• Alameda transferred assets to FTX to short the whole market. And that time the market is also unstable because of a lot of bad news, in favor of the short side.

What do you think Alameda did with a large amount of assets transferred to FTX? And whether this is in the plan of Alameda Research and Sam Bankman-Fried. We don’t know for sure what happened, but based on two assumptions we often observe how the market moves at that time:

$BTC has dropped 43.73% in just one week but ETH has also dropped 78% and altcoins have also dumped. The selling volume prevails making the market panic-sell. The bad news is continuously by the whales, fear engulfs the market. The weak buying volume, and also did not see any buy force here.

Looking at the Total Liquidations of the whole market and BTC, you can see that Long orders are liquidated continuously, statistics have about $1.8b liquidated in just 7 days. By calculation, Alameda made two swaps from stETH-> ETH with a total amount of nearly $88m equivalent to 37,212 ETH. With this difference, the fund has suffered a loss of nearly 933 ETH (more than $1.6m) excluding fees and slippage (calculated by ETH price on June 8 at about $1,800).

So at the highest level, Alameda may have lost nearly $2m. However, this loss will be immediately compensated if Alameda Research has made the order short as soon as a large amount of stablecoin is transferred to the FTX according to the second hypothesis. And Alameda’s position is short at the top with huge profit.

Compared with the above indicators and information, the assumption that Alameda transfer stablecoin to FTX to catch the bottom and take profit altcoin is not very feasible. The second hypothesis seems to be more reliable.

Rumors surrounding Alameda and FTX market manipulation

Many sources on social tell us that it is common knowledge within the Crypto industry right now that Alameda (FTX) & SBF are 100% trying to push the Bitcoin price down right now to liquidate a number of market participants including, but not limited to Celsius. So their gold is: Acquire on the cheap?

Cryptocurrency giant FTX ready with billions of dollars for acquisitions: FTX has been making waves in traditional financial circles with a plan that could cut out brokerages from clearing some derivatives. In January, the exchange raised US$400 million, bringing the total amount raised in the prior six months to nearly US$2 billion .Fast-growing cryptocurrency exchange FTX is prepared to spend billions of dollars to buy stakes in other companies as it looks to grow the suite of products it offers customers, according to the firm’s chief executive officer.

Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, who is also the firm’s co-founder, said that recent rounds of fundraising by FTX and its US entity – totalling more than US$2 billion – could be used to bankroll the moves.

Verdict

With a new market like Crypto, investors need to carefully consider their investment decisions and always follow the steps of the sharks. Because the market capitalization is too small, the legal constraints are not clear. So it’s easy to manipulate. Many people call crypro a ponzi, it is not wrong to consider from many angles. Above is some information about Alameda, FTX that we have found. Hope it helps you.

If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or ideas about the project, please email ventures@coincu.com.

Coincu will continue to update the situation related to Sam Bankman-Fried, you can find out more information through this article.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary, and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

Alan

Coincu Ventures