Alameda Research was a quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm and liquidity provider. On November 11, 2022, the firm announced that it would be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. ^[8] [1][2]

History

Founded in 2017, Alameda Research was a financial services company that focuses on providing liquidity and managing digital assets. The company was originally founded in Hong Kong but has expanded to the United States and Japan. Alameda Research was founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, who had previously worked at Jane Street, a global proprietary trading firm.^[4]

Bankruptcy

In November 2022, Bankman-Fried announced that Alameda Research and FTX had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy along with other companies related to FTX. The founder Sam Bankman-Fried resigned from his position as CEO, with John J. Ray III succeeding him.^[9] Websites for Alameda Research and the company’s venture capital arm, FTX Ventures, were offline and made private, while both FTX’s main site and FTX US’ website remain accessible.^[10]

According to a recent report by The Wall Street Journal, the reason for the crisis was that the exchange provided up to $10 billion in loans using money that customers had deposited. Since FTX had $16 billion in customer assets, the exchange had lent more than half of its customer funds. Aside from FTX, Alameda had to take out additional loans from other financial firms too, which totals $1.5 billion, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.^[11]