FTX Estate is Staking 5.5M Solana Tokens: Whale Alert

• Ashpool, an X account, alerts that FTX estate is staking 5.5 million SOL.
• Ashpool’s alert has generated a conversation among many crypto users.
• FTX Estate holds about 16% of Solana’s market cap.

According to Ashpool, an X account renowned for crypto research, FTX estate is staking 5.5 million SOL. In its post, Ashpool referenced another post from Whale Alert showing an SOL transaction between two unknown wallets to the tune of 5,546,217 SOL, equivalent to $121,255,031. 

Ashpool’s alert generated a conversation among many crypto users, many of whom are trying to understand the narrative behind the recent action by the FTX estate. One of the respondents under Ashpool’s post identified as ‘rpc mert’ recalled a statement by one of SBF’s close associates, Caroline Ellison, who said that FTX had SOL tokens locked on the project’s network.

Ellison made the statement during an “all-hands” meeting from the SBF trial on November 9, 2022. She said:

I don’t think we’ve talked to Solana people, and I feel maybe we talked to them once, and they were like “no you can’t sell it, it’s locked.

Rpc Mert deduced from Ellison’s statement that she was admitting two things. First, FTX did not have contact with Solana, and second, Solana declined their advances when they asked to make contact.

The recent staking transaction by the FTX estate marks the second-largest Solana Stake Flow since April, as shown in a screenshot shared by Ashpool. The largest transaction during this period was a withdrawal of 7,787,430 SOL tokens from the staking pool on July 25, 2023. Otherwise, the recent FTX estate transaction represents the largest deposit the staking pool has seen since April.

FTX estate is the body responsible for overseeing the bankruptcy and restructuring of the once-active cryptocurrency exchange. As of last September, the group revealed it holds $1.16 billion in Solana (SOL), amounting to about 16% of Solana’s market cap, and $560 million in Bitcoin (BTC).