FTX Sues Binance and Former CEO Changpeng Zhao, Seeks $1.8 Billion: Report

The once-giant cryptocurrency exchange that went under just over two years ago, FTX, continues with its effort to claw back substantial funds from former investors.

In its latest action, the Sam Bankman-Fried-founder company has gone after Binance and its former CEO, Changpeng Zhao.

Bloomberg’s report indicates that the lawsuit filed by FTX’s lawyers seeks to retrieve $1.8 billion, which it claims was fraudulently transferred by its former CEO, SBF.

According to the filing, SBF transferred $1.76 billion at the time in FTT, BNB, and BUSD to Binance, some of its executives, and CZ back in July 2021. Consequently, they sold 20% of FTX’s international unit and just over 18% of the US arm.

The filing further alleges that FTX and Alameda Research “may have been insolvent from inception and certainly were balance-sheet insolvent by early 2021,” which makes the transfer fraudulent.

Other allegations made by FTX’s current leadership include claiming that CZ made numerous “false, misleading, and fraudulent tweets” that actually accelerated the collapse of the SBF-led exchange.

Recall that CZ said on November 6, 2022 that the company he ran plans to sell its entire FTT token portfolio, worth around $530 million at the time. FTX withdrawals began immediately after the post and the exchange had collapsed within a few days.

Since then, the new leadership at the now-defunct company has initiated numerous lawsuits against former partners and investors. Most recently, it settled a legal dispute against Bybit in which it will receive $228 million.