According to a study conducted by analytics firm Nansen, about 86% of FTX's FTT utility tokens were initially controlled by the crypto exchange itself and Alameda Research, also associated with Sam Bankman-Fried.
Based on network data, the company's specialists have identified a group of wallets that show that Alameda Research was one of the first liquidity providers for FTX in May 2019.
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Of the initial 350 million FTT issues, 280 million were controlled by the exchange itself.
It is believed that 27 million of the 59.3 million FTTs placed in the private and seed rounds ended up in Alameda's FTX wallet.
All of the exchange tokens, including most of the unsold tokens, were deposited at an address with a three-year grant from the company as the sole beneficiary.
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According to analysts, this has led to limited liquidity of the tokens, making them susceptible to manipulation.
During the 2021 bull market, when FTT's price soared from $0.1 to $84, affiliates decided not to sell to the market, but to use the tokens as collateral to borrow against.