Alameda Research Sues Waves Founder to Recover $90M

FTX and its trading affiliate, Alameda Research, have launched new lawsuits targeting major industry figures including Waves founder Aleksandr Ivanov, Binance, and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao. The latest developments are part of the defunct exchange’s ongoing effort to recover assets.

Alameda Research Sues Waves Founder

In a Sunday filing, Alameda Research filed a lawsuit against Waves founder, Aleksandr  Ivanov, seeking to recover approximately $90 million allegedly misappropriated by Ivanov and entities connected to Waves.

According to the lawsuit, in March 2022, Alameda Research deposited about $80 million worth of USDT and USDC to the Waves-based decentralized liquidity protocol, Vires. Finance. This amount was subsequently converted into USDN, a Waves-native stablecoin, inflating the total value to around $90 million.

The court filing alleges that Ivanov promoted Vires as an opportunity for lenders and other users to make significant profits. But in reality, he secretly orchestrated numerous transactions that artificially inflated the value of WAVES, while at the same time siphoning funds from Vires.

“Ivanov secretly orchestrated a series of transactions that inflated artificially the value of WAVES, while at the same time siphoning funds from Vires. As the fraudulent scheme began to be uncovered, WAVES lost substantial market capitalization—losing over 95% of its value—and Vires users were saddled with $530 million in losses,” Alameda said.

Alameda noted that despite numerous efforts to recover the frozen assets, Ivanov, who had participated in only one call in January 2023, has ignored all outreach and refused to cooperate.

FTX Sues Binance & Founder CZ, Seeks $1.8B

In a separate lawsuit, FTX is suing Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao seeking to recover a staggering $1.8 billion in funds.

The defunct crypto exchange alleged that the funds were fraudulently transferred by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in July 2021. Binance, CZ, and other executives reportedly received the funds as part of a share repurchase deal with SBF. 

They obtained the funds by selling 20% of FTX’s international unit and 18.4% of its US-based entity. Following this news, Binance’s native cryptocurrency, BNB, witnessed a 2.36% drop. It is trading for $628.25 at press time.

These lawsuits join FTX’s extensive recovery campaign. Since this year, the exchange has sued over 20 entities as part of its comprehensive strategy to help creditors affected by the FTX collapse retrieve their funds.