Money can be moved off of the exchange through a back door.
Unusual trading patterns have been found over the last five days. Digital collectibles, known as NFTs, were most likely to have been involved in some form of irregularity. The patterns show that desperate customers were turning to FTX users in the Bahamas.
After suspending FTX withdrawals everywhere else in the world, the now-bankrupt global coin exchange only allows withdrawals in the Bahamas. The once $32 billion firm, partially based in Nassau, said it had to facilitate Bahamas withdrawals to comply with local regulations.
At a time when the broader digital collectible market has nosedived, high-net-worth users are paying a lot of money for NFTs. Three weeks after it traded for $9, a collectible sold for $10 million. This week another NFT was sold for over a million dollars.
Owen Rapaport said that the NFT activity is irregular at a macro level when the market is declining and when there is limited trading on other FTX markets.
This type of trading is likely to be used by FTX users to access money. Rapaport theorizes that traders may have an agreement with the users of FTX to pay a percentage of the assets once they are successfully withdrawn.
Data from Dune Analytics shows that trading volumes for non-fungible token have fallen from their record high. The price of the virtual currency has plummeted from its all-time high.
Anyone can see where the money is going, but it's still not known who the person is. FTX appeared to have shut down the irregular trading on Friday, but it was not known for certain who these customers were. There are still offers to buy these items, but no buy orders have been executed.
FTX and its founder didn't respond to CNBC's request for comment
This week, some users have called out the same thing. One of the first people to suggest that users were buying NFTs that were put up for sale by Bahamian users was a well-known host of a popular digital currency show. He pointed to a wallet that withdrew $21 million from FTX and sent it to an address that looked like it was in the Bahamas.
According to reports, FTX has seen unexplained outflows after it filed for protection. According to two people familiar with the matter, between $1 billion and $2 billion in customer funds have gone missing from the exchange. Elliptic estimates that $473 million has been moved off of FTX.
After a week of turmoil, the company filed for Chapter 11. The exchange was close to being bought by its biggest rival after it was accused of misuse of customer funds.
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