The former CEO of one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges has denied he fled to South America after the company filed for bankruptcy.
Reuters asked FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried about Twitter speculation that he had flown to Argentina, and replied in a text message: “No.”
The 30-year-old has Removal of CEOtold Reuters he was in the Bahamas, where he lives.
Meanwhile, the cryptocurrency exchange has been mired in further controversy after it said it detected unauthorized transactions, with analysts noting that millions of dollars in assets had been moved from the platform under “suspicious circumstances.”
FTX filed for bankruptcy on Friday after its larger rival Binance abandoned a proposed acquisition.
At least $1bn (£845m) worth of customer funds had disappeared from the platform, Reuters reported, citing sources.
The news agency said Mr Bankman-Fried had transferred $10bn (£8.4bn) of client funds to his trading firm Alameda Research.
Further problems arose when FTX’s U.S. general counsel, Ryne Miller, tweeted that the company’s digital assets were being moved into so-called cold storage “to mitigate damage from observed unauthorized transactions.” .
Cold storage refers to encrypted wallets that are not connected to the internet to prevent hacking.
Earlier, Mr. Miller tweeted that he was “investigating wallet movement anomalies related to the consolidation of FTX balances across exchanges.”
FTX International and FTX US saw outflows of $659 million (£557 million) in the past 24 hours, according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen.
Elliptic, an independent analytics firm, said crypto assets worth around $473 million (£400 million) “was removed from FTX wallets in suspicious circumstances early this morning,” though it could not confirm whether the tokens had been stolen.
The crisis surrounding the exchange has raised further questions about the regulation of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.
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