FTX, Alameda and the Solana ecosystem
Question:
How has the recent tumult surrounding FTX and Alameda impacted SOL and the Solana ecosystem?
It is up to you to decide what area to focus on, however the analysis must use Solana data.
Overview of analysis:
In this investigation, the impacts of recent news around FTX or Alameda research group on Solana ecosystem have been analyzed. This analysis divided into the following parts:
- Track inflow/outflow of FTX or Alameda accounts on Solana
- Investigate on CEXs
- Whale activity during this situation
- Trading of FTX and Serum tokens in this period
By the use of the findings related to these parts, the final conclusion has been drawn.
About Alameda and FTX:
FTX (FTX.com) is an institutional-level digital currency derivatives exchange that was established in May 2019 in Hong Kong. This exchange, built with the slogan "by traders and for traders", introduced its brand with the first derivative products of its kind in the cryptocurrency industry. Shortly after its launch, the FTX exchange was ranked among the top five derivatives exchanges in terms of trading volume and received positive reviews. This exchange quickly gained popularity among retail and professional traders of crypto derivatives.
FTX exchange was originally developed by Alameda Research, a trading company founded in 2017. The company manages $100 million worth of digital assets and is one of the top market makers for BitMEX, OKEx and other derivatives exchanges. ==Alameda Research was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, a former professional trader at Jane Street Capital's international ETF fund, and Gary Wang, a former developer at Google. Mr. Wang and Mr. Benkman formed a highly professional team of crypto and cryptocurrency trading experts who helped them build the FTX platform.==
The FTX exchange includes a wide range of tools and trading products, some of which are completely unique to this exchange and have been designed and developed by its development team. FTX exchange is primarily a derivatives exchange; That is, users do not actually trade the underlying assets. Instead, in most of the exchange's trading products, users are trading a contract for a fixed asset or buying a token that represents another asset or currency. The Allamanda Research and FTX team have created some of the most unique and innovative commercial products on the market
Methodology:
The data provided by Flipside has been used to handle this analysis.
This following steps used to handle this investigation:
-
Step 1: Find the addresses related to the Alameda and FTX.
Use
dim_labels
where label ilike '%alameda%' or label ilike 'ftx%'
-
Step 2: select tokens as USDC, USDT and SOL to handle this analysis.
-
Step 3: Use the address of Step 1 and track the inflow and outflow of tokens selected on Step 2
-
Step 4: Estimate the net flow of USD tokens on Alameda and FTX by Step 3
-
Step 5: Find out the popular CEXs for transferring USD token from them into Alameda or FTX
-
Step 6: Find the popular CEXs for outflow of USD token from Alameda or FTX to them
-
Step 7: Investigate on Whales activity around this topic
- Define whales as users transferred over 10k USD in one transaction.
-
Step 8: Investigate on trading activity of FTX and Serum tokens
The time period of this analysis is set to the past month.
Part 1: Track inflow/outflow of FTX or Alameda accounts on Solana
Findings:
- In the past month, the outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts was more than inflow volume.
- The average transfer volume alert us to look precisely on the whales activity because over 138k USD have been sent out from FTX or Alameda accounts.
- On Solana ecosystem, the Wrapped SOL has the domination on tokens used for inflow/outflow.
Part 2: Investigate on CEXs
Part 3: Whale activity during this situation
Findings:
- The highest outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts during the past month happened on November 6 as can be seen.
- Since the start of November, the average transfer volume in USD from FTX or Alameda accounts has been increased considerably and reached its highest amount with over 55k USD on November 6.
- The cumulative analysis shown the breakpoints by date for inflow and outflow for FTX or Alameda accounts during the period of investigation and as can be seen from November 6, the domination of outflow volume in USD has been increased dramatically.
Part 4: Trading of FTX and Serum tokens in this period
Findings:
In the first part, lets concentrated on the CEXs that used to sent assets into the FTX or Alameda accounts during the past month:
- The Kraken platform has the highest share of transferred volume into the FTX or Alameda accounts on Solana ecosystem by volume.
- On November 6, the highest volume of inflow into the FTX or Alameda accounts happened and the majority of that is done by Kraken platform.
- The Gate.io and Coinbase stand in the next ranks of most used CEXs to inflow asset into the accounts.
Conclusion:
- From the results it can be seen that, the volume of transfer (in USD) from Alameda or FTX accounts into the other CEXs like Kraken or Bitfinex since start of November.
- According to the results, Whales are dominated the outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts on Solana ecosystem more than regular users.
- By considering the recent activities related to the inflow/outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts, users swapped their FTX tokens into the stable coins like USDC or USDT.
Findings:
Now deep dive into the popular part and track the outflow from Alameda or FTX accounts into the CEXs during past month:
- The Kraken, Bitfinex and Coinbase are three of the popular CEXs that selected tokens outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts into them but domination of Kraken in not negotiable.
- Over 240 million USD worth transferred from FTX or Alameda accounts into the Kraken just on the November 6 and its the huge outflow.
- The first week of November is responsible for huge outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts.
Findings:
- According to the definition of Whales in the Methodology section, the huge part of recent inflow/outflow was handled by Whales rather than regular users.
- The Whales are responsible for the large volume of outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts on Solana ecosystem in the recent days.
- Over 2.21 billion USD have been sent from FTX or Alameda accounts by Whales on November 6.
- From the daily analysis it can be seen that, the activity of Whales has been increased since start of November and these type of users sent their assets to other platforms.
Findings:
Now lets investigate the trading activity of Serum which received early backing from FTX and related entities:
- On November 8 and the day after huge outflow from FTX or Alameda accounts, the volume of swaps for swapped from Serum token has been increased.
- As can be seen, the swap to Serum token increased on November 8 with over 2.44 million tokens.
- people swapped their Serum tokens into the USDC and Raydium by considering the volume of swaps.
Findings:
First of all lets see the trading activity for FTX token on Solana ecosystem during the past month:
- The USDC, USDT and Wrapped SOL are three of the most used tokens that users swapped their FTX tokens into them.
- The USDC with over 750 number of swaps and 267 unique swappers has been dominated the swap from FTX process.
- On November 8, the huge part of users with largest volume of swap just swapped their FTX token into the other currencies.
Useful links:
Author:
Credited by MZG
Discord handle: m.zamani#0361
Twitter handle: @GargariZamani
