According to data source Arkham, bankrupt crypto exchange FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, “unlocked” approximately $16 million worth of SOL token from Solana and moved it to an address tied to creditor repayments.
Release refers to the process of removing crypto assets that were previously locked into a proof-of-stake (PoS) network to help secure the blockchain and earn rewards.
The latest initiative follows a familiar pattern: unlocking coins and routing them to addresses used to repay creditors. About a month ago, Alameda did the same, directing the funds to the same distribution address. This earlier decision ultimately raised expectations that the funds were part of an ongoing creditor repayment process related to the company’s restructuring.
Although there has been no formal confirmation that this specific tranche will be distributed imminently, the repetition of this pattern suggests a continuity in the process rather than an isolated movement.
SOL, the native token of the Solana programmable blockchain, has a market capitalization of $47.26 billion, making it the seventh largest digital asset in the world. At the time of writing, SOL was trading near $82, virtually unchanged over 24 hours, but down significantly from its all-time high of $293 reached in January last year.
Alameda, founded by Sam Bankman-Fried in 2017, began as a quantitative trading boutique focused on arbitrage opportunities in digital assets, exploiting price differences between exchanges and markets.
At its peak, Alameda was a major liquidity provider to the crypto markets and was deeply embedded in the ecosystem, trading billions in volume and operating across spot, derivatives and structured products.
Alameda still holds approximately 3.5 million SOL worth $294.10 million, per Arkham.
