With Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial to begin in October, another hot topic in the FTX drama is making headlines. FTX lawyers had applied to sell digital assets to the tune of $3.4 billion, which spooked the crypto market earlier this week. And while the court granted this on September 13, the asset sale will likely not impact the market in any significant way.
Judge John Dorsey of the Delaware Bankruptcy Court allowed the sale of Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, and other tokens in weekly batches. At first, there will be a limit of $50 million worth of token sales per week, increasing to $100 million in the coming weeks. There is also an option to increase the weekly limit to $200 million.
While the largest portion of the holdings in question is Solana, out of the $1.16 billion SOL, only $9.2 million can be unlocked monthly. With the majority of SOL locked with Alameda and other FTX ventures, the structured sale of the available token should not impact the market too much.
The sales will be managed by an investment adviser, with confidential information accessible only to professionals. If committees or the U.S. trustee object, sales will be delayed until objections are resolved or a court gives orders to sell.
Bitcoin and Others with Low-Impact Potential
Other crypto assets include Bitcoin ($560 million), Ether ($192 million), APT ($137 million), XRP ($119 million), BIT ($49 million), STG ($46 million), WBTC ($41 million) and WETH ($37 million) as well as the stablecoin USDT ($120 million). The $560 million Bitcoin only accounts for 1% of weekly trading volume, according to data from crypto analytics platform Messari.
FTX said in a statement that they had started moving and bridging coins and tokens to their original blockchain. FTX said: “FTX has been actively bridging tokens from various blockchains back to their native blockchains. FTX also has been in the process of migrating SOL and other tokens from existing wallets to BitGo, FTX’s qualified custodian.”
Contemplating an Offer
Interestingly, Tron’s Justin Sun said he was considering buying FTX’s assets in a bid to curb the influence of the sales to the broader market. He posted on X: “Contemplating an offer for FTX’s holding tokens and assets to reduce their selling impact on the crypto community. Let’s unite to bolster our crypto ecosystem!”
While the market is holding steady, the crypto market initially reacted with a strong downward move on September 11, anticipating large sell-offs from the FTX filing. Bitcoin dropped from $25,679 to $25,007 within the space of a day. According to CoinMarketCap, BTC has since recovered and is trading at $26,657 at the time of writing.
