The FTX estate reportedly staked 5.5 million Solana (SOL), worth $122 million. This development comes amid fears that the defunct crypto exchange will liquidate a substantial portion of its SOL holdings and trigger a bearish trend.
FTX renews bullish interest in Solana with latest move
On October 14, blockchain tracking platform launched Whale Alert reported that 5.5 million SOL had been transferred between two unknown wallets. Afterwards, a crypto analyst with the X username ashpool quickly identified the FTX exchange as being behind this whale transaction.
Using data from gelato.sh, ashpool revealed that the FTX exchange had delegated the said 5.5 million SOL to the Figment staking service, an active validator on the Solana network.
FTX Estate is betting 5.5 million SOLhttps://t.co/ajRgBHFNt9 https://t.co/UGorSGMtwC
— aspool (@solanobahn) October 14, 2023
In September, the bankrupt crypto exchange’s management received court approval to liquidate its $3.4 billion crypto holdings as they sought to pay off their creditors.
Solana is responsible for the majority of FTX’s crypto assets, with the exchange reportedly holding 55.8 million SOL, worth $1.16 billion.
However, the majority of this SOL is currently invested, with FTX reportedly having access to 7 million SOL as of September, most of which had been sold.
On October 6, 9.1 million SOL, worth approximately $212 million, was acquired by Alameda Research – the defunct trading wing of FTX – Reportedly not deployed, raising fresh fears of a market sell-off by the FTX estate.
However, FTX’s latest move to stake 5.5 million SOL shows that the exchange is sticking to its SOL investments for now, which could be interpreted as a reassuring move for traders fearing liquidation.
Despite its bankrupt status, FTX is still considered a major player in the Solana ecosystem, with 10% of SOL’s total supply. In addition to its SOL holdings, FTX also owns 20,500 BTC worth $560 million and 112,600 ETH, worth $192 million, among other crypto assets.
SOL up 16% in one month
In other news, SOL is up 16.06% in recent months despite liquidation fears and worrying factors related to the FTX exchange.
Recently, rumors circulated that the defunct exchange might “shut down” the Solana blockchain if it found the need to liquidate traders’ long positions.
However, these rumors were quickly debunked as fake by multiple accounts. Jacob Creech, head of developers at Solana, caught the attention of the community to the fact that there is a $400,000 SOL bounty for anyone who can find a “switch off” to the network.
At the time of writing, SOL acts at $21.98, with a gain of 2.34% on the last day. Meanwhile, the token’s daily trading volume has increased by 10.18% and is valued at $267.07 million.
SOL trading at $21.93 on the hourly chart | Source: SOLUSDT chart on Tradingview.com
Featured image of Cryptodose, chart from Tradingview
