FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was holding a $50 million account at a little-known bank located in rural Washington state, according to a recently released court filing. According to the latest developments, this account was also seized. Here are the details…
FTX founder’s $50 million confiscated
As we reported on Kriptokoin.com, prosecutors seized $700 million worth of assets that Bankman-Fried deposited with Farmington State Bank on January 4. Now, they said that they have confiscated $ 49,999,500, which is still in the same bank. Bankman-Fried’s trading company Alameda Research bought a $11.5 million stake in Farmington in March last year – more than double the bank’s entire net worth at the time.
Until then, the little-known bank was the 26th smallest bank in the US out of around 4,800 banks. It is located in Farmington, Washington, where only 146 people live. According to a November New York Times report, Farmington had only three employees specializing in agricultural loans to farmers and did not offer online banking or credit cards at the time of Bankman-Fried’s investment.
During the NYT report, the bank said it had 32 employees and had a valuation of $115 million “consistent with other similar tech banks and trust banks startups.” The bank registered the name “Moonstone” a few days before Alameda’s investment and was until recently listed online as “Moonstone Bank”. While the website didn’t directly mention cryptocurrencies, it said it wanted to “support the development of next-generation finance.”
Authorities continue to investigate SBF
The small rural bank said last week that it will retire the Moonstone name, which cryptocurrency had hit with high-profile waves of bankruptcies and liquidity crises last year, and return to its roots as a community bank. “The change in strategy reflects the impact of recent events in the crypto-asset industry and the consequent changing regulatory environment regarding crypto-asset businesses,” Farmington said in a statement released Jan. said.
Federal prosecutors are working to trace assets held by Bankman-Fried, who pleaded not guilty to eight fraud charges earlier this month and is scheduled to stand trial in October. As cryptokoin.com reported, they claim that SBF is using FTX customers’ money to support Alameda.
In addition to the money he has invested in Farmington, they have seized just over $100 million in an account at crypto-focused bank Silvergate Capital and $21 million at brokerage firm ED&F Man Capital Markets. U.S. officials also confiscated approximately 55 million shares of Robinhood worth $526 million and are investigating the cryptocurrency and money that Bankman-Fried holds in three accounts on rival crypto exchange Binance.
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