On Dec. 28, cryptocurrency wallets linked to Alameda Research, the bankrupt sister company of crypto exchange FTX, became active after four weeks of inactivity.
Market exploiters and criminals use crypto mixers to obscure the transaction path so that funds cannot be traced back to their origins.
the sudden movement of funds from Alameda wallets just days after Sam Bankman Fried was released on bail raised suspicions within the crypto community. It appears that the perpetrators of these fund transfers used extensive planning to conceal the routes of the transfers nearly 24 hours later.
In the first transfer of funds, multiple Alameda addresses swapped tokens for Ether (ETH)/Tether (USDT) and sent them to cryptocurrency mixers, according to data shared by Arkham. The majority of these transfers were tracked to two main wallets with the number 0xe5D and 0x971.
The ArkhamTokens were sent first to an address starting with 0x738, then to a address starting with 0x64e from the Alameda wallet. After splitting up the ETH, this wallet sends it to smaller wallets, usually in the range of $200,000 and $50,000. After that, it is sent to mixers such as Fixedfloat and ChangeNOW.
Source: ArkhamAnother wallet was used to swap ETH for stablecoins, where assets were first converted into USDT and then sent to Fixedfloat. Using mixers, 800,000 USDT were swapped out, and another 400,000 USDT were funneled through other means, while renBTC was used to send 200 000 USDT in stablecoins to the Bitcoin network.
Funds worth $1.7 million were swapped and sent through various mixing services as follows:
As the cryptocurrency market continues to grow, more and more money is being moved around. Recently, close to $325k in USDT was moved through ChangeNOW (~$325k), and up to $800k in USDT was sent through Fixedfloat. The movement of funds from Alameda funneled through mixing tools created quite a fuss in the crypto community. Some question that timing, while others point toward the use of mixing services and the inability of authorities to prevent such a thing despite it being sub-judiced.
