Ex-Alameda Co-CEO Sam Trabucco has agreed to surrender his yacht and real estate properties as part of a settlement with FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange.
According to a filing released on Monday, Trabucco will transfer legal ownership of two apartments in San Francisco and a 53-foot HCB Suenos yacht to FTX creditors. He purchased the apartments in June 2021 for $8.7 million and the yacht in March 2022 for $2.51 million. A previous filing revealed that he used company funds from FTX to buy the yacht.
The filing also states that Trabucco has agreed to transfer all rights to claims filed against FTX, which are valued at approximately $70 million, and these claims will be erased.
The agreement between Trabucco and the FTX estate is currently awaiting final approval and requires endorsement from a federal judge in Delaware at a hearing scheduled for December 12. If approved, this settlement would protect Trabucco from potential legal actions by FTX’s debtors.
The proposed settlement is expected to bring more value to the Debtors’ estates compared to what could be recovered through a lawsuit against Trabucco, especially when considering the risks involved, according to the filing. This agreement allows the Debtors to secure a strong recovery for their stakeholders without the expenses, uncertainty, and time associated with legal action.
Trabucco gained recognition at Alameda Research for his daring trading strategies, particularly his high-risk bets on Dogecoin’s price fluctuations driven by Elon Musk’s tweets. He stepped down as co-CEO in August 2022, just before the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research, with Caroline Ellison taking over.
Although Trabucco was involved in Alameda’s controversial financial moves, he has not faced criminal charges in relation to the FTX collapse. However, his name did come up in court proceedings related to a bribery scandal involving Chinese officials, although he was not indicted.
Throughout the FTX turmoil, Trabucco remained mostly silent and only contributed two tweets to the conversation during the entire ordeal.
In October, the court granted FTX permission to fully reimburse customers for their frozen digital assets. Meanwhile, FTX has aggressively pursued over 20 lawsuits in Delaware’s bankruptcy court to maximize asset recovery for its creditors.
Most recently, FTX filed a lawsuit against Binance this week, seeking to recover nearly $1.8 billion that Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly transferred fraudulently.