FTX-tied Alameda Research files lawsuit against Waves founder

Alameda Research, a subsidiary of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, filed a lawsuit against Waves blockchain founder Sasha Ivanov for more than $90 million tied to Vires.Finance.

FTX’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, has filed a lawsuit against Waves founder Sasha Ivanov, seeking to recover $90 million worth of crypto he invested in Vires.Finance, a decentralized crypto exchange built on the Waves blockchain.

According to a lawsuit filed Nov. 10, Alameda Research deposited approximately $80 million in Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) with Vires.Finance in March 2022 as part of its trading and investing activities. The platform converted assets into approximately $90 million worth of USDN, an algorithmic stablecoin issued by the Neutrino Protocol. USDN lost its peg to the US dollar multiple times and was eventually rebranded as Neutrino USD (XTN) and has since lost 98% of its value.

The lawsuit states that although Ivanov promoted Vires as an opportunity to make “substantial profits” for lenders and other users, he actually “secretly orchestrated a series of transactions that artificially inflated the value of WAVES while also siphoning off WAVES’ funds.” Vires.”

Alameda goes after Waves founder

The price value of WAVES dropped 95% when the scheme was eventually uncovered, the lawsuit states, adding that Ivanov accused Alameda of destabilizing the Waves ecosystem in order to “divert attention from his participation in the fraud.”

While Ivanov promised to return Alameda’s assets for the benefit of creditors, he ignored all assistance and refused to cooperate, according to the filing. The document also states that it has dissolved the legal entities operating Vires.Finance and Waves.

The lawsuit comes just days after FTX sued to recover over $11 million from a Crypto.com account allegedly controlled by Alameda Research. The lawsuit alleges that Alameda opened the account under the name Ka Yu Tin (also known as Nicole Tin) as part of a broader practice in which shell companies and employee names were used to secretly conduct crypto trading.