FTX Unstakes $28M in SOL But Market Remains Calm... For Now

FTX and Alameda Research have unstaked over 175,000 SOL, causing Solana fans to fear a wider selloff is on the horizon.

178,631 SOL, totaling around $28 million, was unstaked from a wallet tied to the bankrupt exchange on Tuesday. These unstaked tokens are expected to be distributed across multiple wallets on major exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase.

Back in April, FTX announced it would be auctioning off $7.5 billion worth of SOL in the hopes of fetching a higher price than the original liquidation plan of direct sale.

FTX to Auction Off Its Locked Solana Tokens, Seeks Higher Price
FTX is auctioning off its $7.5 billion worth of SOL in the hopes of fetching a higher price than the original liquidation plan of direct sale.

A month later, the exchange sold even more SOL as part of its firesale, totaling around 800,000 SOL valued at $80 million. As recently as September, FTX unstaked 530,000 SOL at a value of $71 million.

FTX Dumps Solana Holdings, Bahamas Real Estate in Recovery Push
The fire sale highlights the challenges of FTX’s recovery efforts, which aims to make creditors whole by year-end.

Monthly SOL redemptions have averaged around 176,700 tokens, equivalent to about $23.5 million. FTX and Alameda Research now hold around 7.06 million SOL, valued at nearly $945.7 million.

This ongoing SOL unstaking is part of FTX's efforts to repay creditors - a $100 million crypto sale plan approved by courts in September.

The United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware recently confirmed FTX’s reorganization plan, allowing for 98% of creditors to receive 119% of their allowed claims within 60 days. FTX is also selling off Ethereum and Polygon to recover funds.

News of FTX's unstaking has nonetheless failed to faze Solana's price, which has slipped just 0.3% over 24 hours. Over the week, SOL is up more than 7.3%.