Get ready for some crypto drama! Picture this: a showdown between Alameda Research, the savvy trading arm once part of the now-defunct FTX, and Aleksandr Ivanov, the mastermind behind the Waves blockchain. The stakes are high, folks, as Alameda has thrown a lawsuit Ivanov's way, claiming he played a sneaky game of extortion.
Here's the scoop: Alameda is on the hunt for a cool $90 million, cash they say is rightfully theirs, tangled up in the financial mess left by FTX's bankruptcy. Back in the day, Alameda parked their assets with Vires.Finance, a liquidity hub nestled in the Waves network. Fast forward to March 2022, and they moved about $80 million in stablecoins, USDT and USDC, over to Vires. That stash morphed into roughly $90 million in USDN—sounds like a fairytale, right?
But according to Alameda, Ivanov wasn't playing fair. They claim he was hyping Waves and Vires as golden goose opportunities for users, all while secretly pulling strings to inflate WAVES’ value. As the plot thickened, WAVES took a nosedive, losing more than 95% of its value and leaving Vires users with a gut-wrenching $530 million in losses.
In a twist worthy of a thriller, Ivanov reportedly pointed fingers at Alameda, accusing them of destabilizing the Waves ecosystem. Behind closed doors, he allegedly tried to strong-arm them, threatening to freeze their assets unless they backed Vires. Alameda, unfazed, stood their ground, and Ivanov retaliated by clamping down on withdrawals, converting assets into USDN, and teasing them with access to funds in fiat—if they played ball.
Ivanov's promises of cooperation fizzled out after a single phone call, and by 2023, he claimed to have disbanded the entities behind Waves and Vires, leaving Alameda no choice but to chase down their money through the courts.
And if that wasn't enough courtroom action, the FTX estate has been busy, too, launching lawsuits left and right to scrape back funds for creditors. They've got their sights set on high-profile names like Anthony Scaramucci of SkyBridge Capital fame and even the crypto giant Binance and its former CEO, Changpeng ‘CZ' Zhao. They're after a whopping $1.8 billion, allegedly funneled out by FTX's former boss, Sam Bankman-Fried.
Stay tuned, because the crypto world is never short on intrigue and excitement!
