Is SBF Behind the Crypto Collapse?

Crypto Twitter has been abuzz with debate following the emergence of a new conspiracy theory that suggests FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried may be the anonymous developer behind the highly controversial BALD memecoin, which launched on Base on July 30 and saw an astronomical 289,000% increase in value within its first 24 hours of trading.

After the developer removed thousands of ETH in liquidity, the price of BALD plummeted more than 85% — prompting allegations of a rug pull, which the developer has denied.

Blockchain sleuths have since been working to uncover the developer’s on-chain past, leading some to draw a link between SBF and the Ethereum wallet address responsible for deploying the Bald token, which had received thousands of ETH from wallets associated with FTX and Alameda Research.

Downsin, an anonymous DeFi commentator, suggested that this link meant SBF was “legit trying to make it all back from prison” — although SBF is not in prison, but rather awaiting his October trial under house arrest at his parent’s home in California.

Data editor Andrew Thurman of Blockworks also found that the same wallet address had made approximately 400 transfers to blacklisted USDT addresses and had “serious Alameda connections for sure.”

Prominent pseudonymous trader Hsaka proposed a conspiratorial scenario in which the launch of Bald — and its subsequent headline-grabbing crash — was perfectly timed to provide SEC Chair Gary Gensler with more ammunition to prosecute FTX’s former rival, Coinbase.

Another anonymous commentator, “Hype”, highlighted the many similarities between the developer and SBF, such as the sentence structure of their social media posts. Additionally, Hype shared that the wallet had been around for a long time and was one of the first voters on proposals on the DeFi platform Sushi Swap.

‘Crypto Twitter is mentally ill’

The likelihood of SBF being behind a scheme like this is highly disputed, given the tight restrictions on his internet usage as part of his bail conditions. Crypto influencer Tiffany Fong — who has had conversations with SBF since April — called Crypto Twitter “mentally ill” and stated that SBF has been using a “flip phone without internet connection” since his bail conditions were revised.

She also pointed out that all visitors to SBF are searched by security and not allowed to bring in any electronic devices. Pseudonymous trader HORSE told his followers to take off their “tinfoil hats” and cast doubt on the probability of such a scenario.

The crypto collapse has led to a lot of speculation and predictions for 2022, and it’s been a hot topic on crypto podcasts and crypto headlines. But the Zodiac IAQUALINK 3.0 IQ30-RS Web Connection Upgrade Kit and the differences between Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0 (also known as the Semantic Web) are unlikely to be factors in this case.