Solana Co-Founder Says FTX’s SOL Should Be Distributed to Customers

Collapsed crypto exchange FTX’s new management might be on the verge of dumping its huge Solana (SOL) holdings, based on the movement of tokens from wallets—and the protocol’s co-founder has a “win-win” solution in mind.

Data shared on Twitter shows that FTX cold storage wallets, further identified via blockchain explorer Solscan, started to move its SOL yesterday. Multiple cold storage FTX wallets collectively hold nearly 7 million SOL, blockchain data shows. That’s about $134 million worth of the asset at today’s prices. 

The Solana Foundation last year disclosed that it and Solana Labs had collectively sold FTX and its sister trading firm Alameda Research a total of 58,086,686 SOL—today worth $1.1 billion. It isn’t clear how much SOL the collapsed crypto giant still held at the time of its November bankruptcy filing.

Analysts, including crypto venture capitalist Adam Cochran, speculated about the recent cold storage moves on the social media platform, with Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko chiming in to say that he’d prefer the SOL was dished out to ex-FTX customers. 

“My wish would be to distribute the SOL to all the FTX customers directly,” he said. “Probably the least worse outcome for everyone.” 

He went on to say that “getting [SOL] distributed to 5 million users would benefit the network over the long term,” and that “it would probably have the best outcome” if users were able to have control of the assets and sell their share at a Dutch auction. He described the plan as a “win-win.”

If each user had the option to

1. Take the even split
2. Sell their share in a Dutch auction
3. Bid into the Dutch auction with a priority over external bids

It would probably have the best outcome for the whole user base. Just rip the bandaid off with the least amount of…

— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) August 31, 2023

Yakovenko and the Solana Foundation did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment, and FTX’s new management did not confirm that it was planning to sell the SOL. 

Former FTX customers are waiting to get their assets back after the exchange went belly up last year.

Before it went bankrupt, the digital asset behemoth FTX had deep ties to Solana, the 10th-largest cryptocurrency by market cap. FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried had been a prominent Solana supporter, and the company launched a marketplace for Solana NFTs and also invested in numerous Solana-related projects.

FTX went bankrupt in November 2022 due to alleged criminal mismanagement. Around $8.7 billion in customer cash was allegedly misappropriated, prosecutors allege, and Bankman-Fried faces 13 criminal charges after his arrest last year. 

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