Three years ago, 1.35 million Solana (SOL) tokens suddenly appeared in the wallet of cryptocurrency brokerage FalconX, but there was no record accompanying the transaction to identify who sent the funds. With SOL's price hovering between $20 and $30 at the time, the tokens were worth tens of millions of dollars, but they mysteriously ended up in the company's wallet.
After the FTX exchange collapsed in late 2022, the price of SOL fell below $10. However, its value has recovered strongly and currently, those tokens are worth up to $190 million. Recently, Binance – the largest cryptocurrency exchange and FalconX’s main liquidity partner – claimed legal ownership and asked FalconX to return these SOLs, to which FalconX agreed.
The situation raises questions about accounting and controls, although given the soaring value of SOL, the tokens represent “a small fraction” of Binance’s total assets, which hold more than $110 billion in reserves and serve more than 90 million customers globally. A FalconX representative confirmed there was a “reconciliation irregularity” involving the Solana tokens, saying there was no identifying information associated with the initial transaction.
Meanwhile, Binance said its customers were never at risk of losing money due to the situation. If the 1.35 million tokens are not found, Binance will bear the loss. A Binance representative said they could not immediately comment on whether the transaction that sent the tokens to FalconX was missing identifying information.
Both companies confirmed that these SOL tokens will be returned to Binance and the issue has now been completely resolved.
While mysterious and confusing transactions do occur in traditional finance, in the crypto world, such situations can easily occur when assets go unrealized for years and increase in value during that time. In fact, the crypto industry is relatively young, operating on a rapidly evolving infrastructure that hosts highly volatile assets.
FalconX, founded in 2018 and valued at $8 billion by mid-2022, offers institutional clients a dashboard to manage portfolios and connect to multiple exchanges, custodians, and market makers. The company processes more than 100 million trades per month, using a complex system of pooled accounts and sub-accounts.#BinanceLaunhcpool #Write2Win #PiNetwork