FTX and Alameda Research collapsed in November 2022, causing approximately $8 billion in losses to customers of the now-bankrupt exchange.
The FTX bankruptcy estate seeks to recover over $100 million from SkyBridge Capital and founder Anthony Scaramucci to recoup funds spent by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) on sponsorship and investment deals with Scaramucci and SkyBridge dating back to 2022.
According to the November 8 legal filing, Bankman-Fried made a series of investments and collaborative partnerships with SkyBridge Capital and Scaramucci before the collapse of FTX — beginning with a $12 million sponsorship of Scaracmucci's SALT conference in January 2022. Shortly after, in March 2022, SBF directed Alameda Research to invest $10 million in the SkyBridge Coin Fund.
FTX lawsuit against SkyBridge and Scaramucci. Source: Kroll
Later, in September 2022, FTX acquired a 30% stake in the operating companies that manage the SkyBridge investment vehicles for $45 million. Attorneys for FTX characterized the investment as lacking financial sense — arguing that "The FTX Group could have easily purchased, itself, less expensively" the basket of cryptocurrencies that a vast majority of the $45 million investment went into. Attorneys for FTX wrote:
"Employees at the FTX Group noted internally at the time that it made no economic sense for Alameda Research Ventures, which was itself in the business of trading in cryptocurrency assets, to place so much money with a third-party manager that was less experienced than it was in the same business."
The filing also accused SkyBridge of breaching the terms of the agreement by selling a portion of those digital assets in 2023 without first obtaining permission from FTX — which FTX lawyers say was a key stipulation of the contractual deal.
Lawyers for the bankrupt exchange explained that the Bitcoin BTC $76,655 and Solana SOL $199.77 holdings purchased as part of the agreement between FTX and SkyBridge would be worth $120 million using current market prices and were worth $60 million when SkyBridge allegedly sold the assets in 2023.
FTX files other lawsuits
The FTX bankruptcy estate has unleashed a flurry of lawsuits in recent weeks. On October 28, FTX filed a lawsuit against KuCoin to recover over $50 million in assets frozen by KuCoin in 2022.
More recently, on November 7, 2024, FTX filed a lawsuit against Crypto.com seeking to recover more than $11 million in assets held by the exchange since 2022.
