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FTX loses $800 million to MobileCoin market manipulation

At some point in April 2021, a trader on the FTX cryptocurrency exchange successfully exploited the firm for around $800 million. They were able to take positions in relatively illiquid crypto tokens, including MobileCoin and BTMX, then manipulate the token prices to appear much higher than their true market value (for example, MobileCoin spiked to $70 a token, rather than around $6). Using these falsely high-valued tokens as collateral, the trader was able to borrow around $800 million in more liquid tokens, abandoning the relatively valueless collateral on the exchange.

During the October 2023 criminal trial of FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, he gave more detail on how the exploit took place, and admitted that he personally had disabled FTX's automatic liquidation systems for this account. Though he intended to closely monitor the account to prevent any losses to FTX, he said that it was actually his actions that allowed the trader to drain such a massive quantity of assets from the exchange.

Prosecutors alleged that Bankman-Fried later had his cryptocurrency trading firm, Alameda Research, shoulder the loss, saying that he'd hoped it would be less visible on Alameda's balance sheets than on FTX's.

Theme tags: Hack or scam