The FTX bankruptcy estate aims to recover over $100 million from SkyBridge Capital and Anthony Scaramucci, stemming from investments and sponsorships made by Sam Bankman-Fried before FTX’s collapse.
Anthony Scaramucci, SkyBridge get Lawsuits
The FTX bankruptcy estate is attempting to recoup over $100 million from SkyBridge Capital and its founder, Anthony Scaramucci, in order to recoup funds that were spent by former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) on sponsorship and investment agreements with Scaramucci and SkyBridge that date back to 2022.
Bankman-Fried initiated a series of investments and collaborative partnerships with Scaramucci and SkyBridge Capital prior to the collapse of FTX, beginning with a $12 million sponsorship of Scaramucci’s SALT conference in January 2022, as indicated in the legal filing on November 8.
SBF directed Alameda Research to invest $10 million in the SkyBridge Coin Fund shortly thereafter, in March 2022.
Subsequently, in September 2022, FTX acquired a 30% stake in the operating entities that oversee the SkyBridge investment vehicles for $45 million.
The FTX Group’s attorneys characterized the investment as lacking financial sense, asserting that “The FTX Group could have easily purchased, itself, less expensively” the basket of cryptocurrencies into which the overwhelming majority of the $45 million investment was allocated. Attorneys representing FTX composed the following:
“Employees at the FTX Group noted internally at the time that it made no economic sense for Alameda Research Ventures, which was itself in the business of trading in cryptocurrency assets, to place so much money with a third-party manager that was less experienced than it was in the same business.”
The filing also accused SkyBridge of violating the conditions of the agreement by selling a portion of the digital assets in 2023 without first obtaining permission from FTX. FTX lawyers contend that this was a critical stipulation of the contractual agreement.
The lawyers for the insolvent exchange elucidated that the Bitcoin and Solana holdings acquired as part of the agreement between FTX and SkyBridge would be valued at $120 million at current market prices and at $60 million when SkyBridge allegedly sold the assets in 2023.
FTX Files Lawsuits
In the past few weeks, the FTX bankruptcy estate has sparked a surge in litigation. A lawsuit was filed by FTX against KuCoin on October 28 in order to recover more than $50 million in assets that were suspended by KuCoin in 2022.
FTX filed a lawsuit against Crypto.com on November 7, 2024, with the intention of recovering over $11 million in assets that the exchange had held since 2022.
