- Crypto assets worth $1.7 million were swapped and mixed through various crypto-mixing services related to Alameda Research.
- The movement of funds from the Alameda wallet via mixing tools caused quite a stir in the crypto community.
As per Twitter reports, 30 cryptocurrency wallets related to Alameda Research, the bankrupt sister company of crypto exchange FTX, became active on 28 December following weeks of inactivity. Crypto assets worth $1.7 million were swapped and mixed through various crypto-mixing services.
Crypto mixers are frequently used by market manipulators and criminals to obscure the transaction path, allowing funds to be traced back to their original source.
The crypto Twitter community had yesterday (28 December) noticed a transfer of funds from Alameda wallets. The Alameda wallet was discovered to be exchanging bits of ERC-20s for Ether/Tether, with the ETH and USDT then being routed through instant exchangers and mixers. At the same time, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried “SBF” was granted bail.
The first fund transfer involved multiple Alameda addresses exchanging tokens for Ether/Tether and sending them to crypto mixers. The majority of these transfers were traced back to two main wallets with the prefixes 0xe5D and 0x971.
Source: Twitter/Arkham
A complex route to transfer funds
Tokens from the Alameda wallet were first sent to an address beginning with 0x738, then to an address beginning with 0x64e. This 0x64e wallet then divides the ETH and sends it to smaller wallets, typically $200,000 and $50,000. It was then sent to mixers like Fixedfloat and ChangeNOW.
Another wallet was used to swap for stablecoins, with wallet assets first being converted into USDT and then sent to Fixedfloat. A total of 800,000 USDT was exchanged using mixers, with another 400,000 USDT funneled through other means. renBTC was used to send 200,000 USDT worth of stablecoins to the BTC network.
A total of $1.7 million was swapped and sent through various mixing services. The movement of funds from the Alameda wallet via mixing tools caused quite a stir in the crypto community.
Many question the timing of the fund transfers, while others point to the use of mixing services and the inability of authorities to prevent such behavior despite the fact that the matter is still under investigation.
