In response to a CoinDesk scoop about trading company Alameda Research’s balance sheet, Binance’s CEO tweeted on Sunday that he will sell the remaining FTT tokens he acquired as part of his withdrawal from Alameda sister firm FTX last year.
As part of the crypto exchange’s exit from FTX equity last year, Binance earned around $2.1 billion in BUSD and FTT.
As part of Binance’s exit from FTX equity last year, Binance received roughly $2.1 billion USD equivalent in cash (BUSD and FTT). Due to recent revelations that have came to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books. 1/4
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) November 6, 2022
However, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao did not disclose how much FTT his company would sell.
Meanwhile, Alameda’s CEO claimed that her trading firm’s financial position is stronger than the balance sheet CoinDesk published. Responding to the Binance CEO’s statement, she also offered to purchase his company’s FTT tokens for $22 each.
@cz_binance if you’re looking to minimize the market impact on your FTT sales, Alameda will happily buy it all from you today at $22!
— Caroline (@carolinecapital) November 6, 2022
Speculation around the FTT token caused considerable price volatility during the Twitter exchange.
In his initial tweet, CZ stated that Binance’s sale would have “little market impact” and could take “a few months to finalize.”
Saturday afternoon, Blockchain explorer Etherscan revealed an address transferring 23 million FTT (valued at roughly $530 million) to a Binance exchange wallet.
According to CoinMarketCap, the price of FTT decreased 14% over the past 24 hours to $22.02, its lowest price since June. At the time of publication, the price of FTT rose to $23.03.
🐳⚠️ Transfer $583M worth of $FTX Token from 0x04b4 to 0x28c6 on Ethereum 💸https://t.co/zwjwAFxdlu
— DeFi Sniper (@DefiSniper) November 5, 2022
CZ’s revelation follows rumours regarding the financial health of Sam Bankman-trading Fried’s firm, Alameda Research after a leaked balance sheet reviewed by CoinDesk suggested the firm owned $5.8 billion of FTT tokens as of June 30. It was disclosed that Alameda has $14.6 billion in assets and $8 billion in liabilities, including $7.4 billion in unknown loans.
Caroline Ellison, CEO of Alameda Research, replied to the rumours on Saturday by tweeting that Alameda has over $10 billion in assets “not shown” on the stolen balance sheet. Alameda had concealed hedges in place and repaid most of their outstanding loans.
CZ said that the selling of Binance’s FTT holdings should not be viewed as an attack on a rival exchange.
“We typically hold tokens for the long term. And we have held on to this token for this long,” tweeted CZ. “We stay transparent with our actions.”