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(Kitco News) –
Even as markets struggle to cope with FTX’s bankruptcy and its contagion, new developments surrounding the exchange and its affiliates continue to unfold.
Late Monday, reports emerged that the US Department of Justice had opened an investigation into FTX months before the crypto exchange collapsed. Bloomberg reported that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York spent months examining FTX for suspected violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions to prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. .
The Justice Department reportedly thought that Bahamas-based FTX.com was still serving customers in the United States, rather than funneling them through FTX.US, which was supposed to be in compliance with the law.
On Tuesday morning, reports surfaced that FTX funds had been used to purchase more than 19 properties worth $121 million in the Bahamas since 2020, according to the country’s official property records. FTX’s real estate purchases included seven condos in the resort community of Albany where the company’s headquarters were located, at a cost of nearly $72 million.
Another beachfront home purchased by FTX in Old Fort Bay was listed for use as a “vacation home” and had SBF’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, as signatories.
“Since before the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have sought to return the deed to the company and are awaiting further instructions,” a spokesman for the couple told Reuters.
Two of FTX’s real estate purchases were for commercial use, including the $8.55 million housing complex that was FTX’s headquarters and five acres of land on which offices were to be built for the exchange. .
Also on Tuesday, Justin Sun, founder of the Tron network, told the Wall Street Journal that he and his affiliates were looking to buy FTX assets.
“We are open to any type of agreement. I think all the options [are] on the table,” Mr Sun told reporters in Singapore on Tuesday. “Right now, our team is in the Bahamas,” Sun said, explaining that representatives from Tron and digital asset exchange Huobi Global were in the Caribbean nation.
“We’re evaluating the assets one by one,” Sun said, “but as far as I know it’s going to be a long process because they’re already in this type of bankruptcy proceeding.”
Markets are also waiting to see what new information comes out of FTX’s bankruptcy court hearing in Delaware later today. Late last week, things were shaping up to be a jurisdictional battle between the Bahamas-based liquidators of FTX Digital Markets, who filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in New York, and the US management of FTX.com who filed Chapter 11 in Delaware.
Before today’s hearing, however, attorneys representing the Bahamian and US liquidators announced that they had reached an agreement that Chapter 11 proceedings could take precedence.
Meanwhile, analysts continue to monitor the on-chain activities of the so-called “FTX hacker”, who was last seen converting tens of millions of dollars worth of ETH into Bitcoin in an attempt to jam tracks.
The overall cryptocurrency market capitalization has fallen below $790 billion, down more than 20% since the FTX crash began earlier this month and down nearly 75% from last month. its peak of nearly $3 trillion in November 2021.
Bitcoin also hit a two-year low of $15,480 on Monday night.
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