An unredacted copy of BlockFi's finances accidentally posted online shows it lost $1.25 billion to Sam Bankman-Fried when its one-time savior exchange collapsed.
Bankrupt crypto lender BlockFi lowballed the extent of its exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX empire by some $200 million, according to a document accidentally posted by its lawyers.
The unredacted document showed that BlockFi had almost $1.25 billion wrapped up in FTX and its sister company, Bankman-Fried's privately owned Alameda Research crypto trading firm. Earlier documents put that amount at $1.03 billion.
Once the second-largest crypto exchange, FTX and the much smaller FTX US froze withdrawals and entered bankruptcy in November after the shock revelations that Bankman-Fried and several top officers had allegedly conspired to drain some $10 billion in FTX customers' funds and send it to Alameda Research after its suffered massive losses during crypto winter.
By the Numbers
While earlier court filings showed that BlockFi had $355 million frozen on FTX and loans of $671 million to Alameda, the actual numbers were $415.1 million on the exchange and $831.3 million loaned to the trading firm.
The new numbers came from M3 Partners, a firm made up of BlockFi clients owed money by Alameda. It is an advisor to the official creditors committee, and a spokesperson told CNBC that the document was uploaded in error, but wouldn't address any specific details.
BlockFi's total assets are listed as $2.7 billion, but nearly half of that is locked in FTX and Alameda, and their value has been written down to nothing on its books, CNBC said.
The leak also revealed more details about BlockFi's clients and the size of their losses.
About 73% of its 662,427 clients had accounts with less than $1,000, and another 20% had 41,000 to $10,000. On the high end, 748 had accounts of $250,000 to $1 million and 169 had more than $1 million.
The False Savior
FTX had originally saved BlockFi from bankruptcy by offering it a credit line of $400 million in June, enabling it to escape a brush with bankruptcy due to the collapse of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, which owed it $80 million.
The deal, however, allowed FTX to purchase BlockFi for up to $240 million, despite a valuation of $4.8 billion a year earlier. And, apparently, it allowed Bankman-Fried to borrow far more from the firm while his own company, Alameda, was hemorrhaging funds. When FTX and Alameda collapsed in November, BlockFi was forced into bankruptcy.
