Huge Crypto Dump Incoming As FTX Plans To Sell Altcoins Worth $4.6B

Posted on January 12, 2023
News
By Mark Otto
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Even though the FTX bankruptcy was two months ago, the issue is far from over for the crypto industry. Currently, new FTX CEO John Ray and his team are working to find as many liquid assets as possible to make up for the customer losses. As Bitcoinist reported yesterday, they have managed to recover around […][...]

As Bitcoinist reported yesterday, they have managed to recover around $5 billion in liquid assets. “We have located over $5 billion of cash, liquid cryptocurrency and liquid investment securities,” Andy Dietderich, an attorney for FTX said Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Massive Crypto Dump Coming?

What may have been even more noteworthy was Dietderich’s statement that FTX plans to dump non-strategic holdings with a book value of $4.6 billion, which could lead to tremendous selling pressure in the crypto market.

While Dietderich also stressed that the legal team is still working to create accurate internal records, which could mean that the sale will be pushed back a bit, the liquidators could also take a staggered approach to the process.

The FTX lawyer also revealed that the recovered funds do not include the assets seized by the Bahamas Securities and Exchange Commission, which Dietderich estimates at only $170 million, while Bahamian authorities put the value as high as $3.5 billion. That’s because the funds primarily consist of the illiquid FTT tokens, Dietderich said.

Which Altcoins Could Be Hit The Hardest?

Coinbase director Conor Grogan has been looking through all wallets to determine which altcoins FTX still owns. The largest crypto position, according to Grogan, is Solana (SOL), of which FTX owns more than $700 million. To this, however, the Coinbase director notes that most of them are locked, so he is not sure why they might have counted them.

This is followed by $575 million in FTT, $371 million MAPS, $127 million OXY, $90 million WBTC, $82 million BONA, and around $500 million “in other random” Solana-based (SPL) tokens.

“My simple model is that the estate wants a ‘win’ and good publicity to talk through all the progress they’ve made,” Grogan claimed and continued on to say that in his opinion, the $5 billion figure is far too high for what could be sold on an open market.

At the same time, Grogan acknowledged that the $4.6 billion is likely not just altcoins, but also Robinhood shares, other stocks, and real estate. “400 million in Robinhood is a significant number that is probably fairly valued. The rest… Hard to say,” the Coinbase director said.

Meanwhile, the on-chain analysis service “Lookonchain” has drawn attention to the Alameda assets receiving wallet, which received 30 million USDC from “Alameda Research 25” a few hours ago.

The wallet currently holds crypto worth $167 million, including 100 million BIT ($46.6 million), 41 million USDT, 31.8 million USDC, 17,177 ETH ($24 million), 4.6 million SUSHI ($5.2 million), 10 million WXRP ($3.76 million), 6.86 million RNDR ($3.2 million), and 6.86 million SRM ($1.6 million).

At press time, the Solana (SOL) price stood at $16.27. The price almost doubled since the bottom at $8.16 on December 29.