Bankman-Fried sold 20% of FTX's worldwide unit interests and 18.4% from its U.S. office, according to the court document. Bankman-Fried repurchased using FTX's token FTT and Binance's BSB and BUSD currencies. The deal was valued $1.76 billion.
However, the FTX team claims Bankman-Fried's Binance transfer was fraudulent. Before the Binance buyback agreement, FTX and Alameda Research were “balance-sheet insolvent.” Thus, they suspect fraud in the transfer.
FTX also accuses CZ of sending “false, misleading, and fraudulent tweets” before the crypto exchange collapsed. The estate said CZ's postings were “maliciously calculated to destroy his rival.”
In November 2022, CZ tweeted that Binance planned to sell $529 million in FTT tokens. A wave of exchange withdrawals by frightened traders followed his post. The Binance representative did not respond to Bloomberg's accusations.
On September 30, former Binance CEO CZ was freed from a four-month jail term. He does public interviews and attends bitcoin events. Sam Bankman-Fried began a 25-year federal prison term last year.
His new counsel has disputed the judgment, arguing that the court deemed Bankman-Fried guilty.
In addition to Binance, FTX has sued 23 former investors, affiliates, and customers to recover debts. Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge Capital, Crypto.com, and FWD.US are plaintiffs.
FTX's sibling hedge fund Alameda Research sued Waves creator Sasha Ivanov for $90 million in cryptocurrency.
