FTX-tied Alameda Research files lawsuit against Waves founder

Alameda Research, a subsidiary of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has sued Sasha Ivanov, the founder of the Waves blockchain, over $90 million tied to Vires.Finance.

FTX‘s sister hedge fund Alameda Research has filed a lawsuit against Waves founder Sasha Ivanov, seeking to claw back $90 million worth of crypto that it deposited with Vires.Finance, a decentralized crypto exchange built on the Waves blockchain.

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

The lawsuit notes that while Ivanov promoted Vires as an opportunity for lenders and other users to make “substantial profits,” in reality, he “secretly orchestrated a series of transactions that inflated artificially the value of WAVES, while at the same time siphoning funds from Vires.”

Alameda goes after Waves founder

As the scheme was eventually uncovered, the price value of WAVES plunged 95%, the lawsuit reads, adding that Ivanov attempted to publicly blame Alameda for destabilizing the Waves ecosystem in an effort to “divert attention from his involvement in the fraud.”

According to the filing, while Ivanov pledged to return Alameda’s assets for the benefit of creditors, he ignored all outreach and refused to cooperate. The document also states that he dissolved the legal entities that operated Vires.Finance and Waves.

The lawsuit comes just a few days after FTX filed a lawsuit 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 of using shell companies and employee names to conduct crypto trades discreetly.