Since the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, many amazing inside stories behind it have gradually surfaced, and the past words and deeds of the founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) have also been exposed one by one. According to the “Wall Street Journal” report , SBF suspected that in order to devalue FTX’s huge debt, it shorted the stable currency USDT to decouple it in an attempt to destabilize the cryptocurrency market.
The report pointed out that on November 10, the eve of FTX’s bankruptcy, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) had a dispute with SBF over Alameda Research’s dumping of a large amount of USDT. Since USDT decoupling may have a chain reaction on cryptocurrency prices, Changpeng Zhao worried that in order to save FTX, which was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time, SBF would not hesitate to let the entire cryptocurrency market be buried with it.
Changpeng Zhao warned SBF at the time in a Signal group chat room called “Exchange Coordination”:
Stop trying to depeg stablecoins. don’t do anything. Stop now and don’t do more damage. The more damage you do now, the longer you’ll be in jail.
In response to Changpeng Zhao’s accusation, SBF seemed a little overwhelmed. He said: “Huh? What did I do to the stablecoin? You mean, you think the $250,000 transaction will lead to USDT decoupling?”
Changpeng Zhao continued to respond that although he does not think that such a large-scale transaction is enough to destroy USDT, it will still have an impact on the market. Changpeng Zhao continued:
My sincere advice is: do nothing. Put on your suit and go back to Washington to answer the question.
SBF then stated: “A transaction of this size will not have any material impact on USDT. As far as I know, neither I nor Alameda have attempted to deliberately depeg USDT or any other stable currency.” Made a lot of mistakes, but this wasn’t one of them.”
It is reported that members of the Signal group chat room also include Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell and Tether chief technical officer Paolo Ardoino and others.
On the day the dispute broke out between the two sides, the price of USDT did briefly decouple, falling more than 2 cents from the $1 level.
On-chain data shows that Alameda borrowed more than 1 million USDT from the cryptocurrency lending platform Aave in several transactions on November 10, and one of the 250,000 USDT transactions immediately attracted the attention of traders. Alameda appears to be swapping some USDT for USDC, raising concerns that Alameda is trying to depeg USDT.
