In just one week, FTX, once the world’s second largest exchange, collapsed. And bigger dramas followed. FTX, which already had few assets, was mysteriously hacked and hundreds of millions of dollars were stolen.
Arkham Intelligence data shows that as of now, wallets related to FTX attack hackers still hold USDT worth $292 million in ETH on Ethereum, $48 million worth of DAI, $44 million worth of BNB, and $4 million worth of Tether on Avalanche. and the $3.8 million MATIC on the Polygon Matic Bridge.
Starting from the morning of November 12, user deposit values, deposit and withdrawal records, and transaction records have all disappeared. For users who stayed with FTX, the last glimmer of hope was almost shattered. On November 15, FTX users found that executing the login operation would return "503", and FTX could no longer be logged in.
The hackers' timely appearance also gave the market more associations about the direction of the plot.
Autism Capital, a Twitter user who has been following the incident, gave a more sensational guess: the hacker did not exist, and it was an insider who absconded with the money. Autism Capital found that the hacker's operation records did not match the time point when FTX disclosed the information to the outside world, and the hacker's operation authority was extremely high, which some people believed was not something that outsiders could reach.
Some community users found that FTX co-founder and CTO Gary Wang's Github account was still contributing code until the company went bankrupt. This active "work" scene is also puzzling.
On November 11, Gary Wang submitted 5 codes. On November 10, Gary Wang submitted 19 codes. After that, Gary Wang's account has not submitted any code. However, since the code was submitted to a private project, we cannot see the specific content of the submission, but it is speculated that the updated code may be FTX's code.
Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison once stated that she, SBF, Gary Wang and another executive knew that FTX was transferring user deposits to Alameda.
The chain reaction caused by the collapse of FTX is gradually emerging and continuing to expand. Hundreds of companies have been implicated, and the entire crypto-finance industry has suffered a heavy blow. (Recommended reading: "Special Topic | FTX Liquidity Dries Up, Lehman Moment of the Crypto Industry Has Come (Continuous Update)")
After the FTX hack, Gary Wang, who was hiding under the surface, has attracted much attention. As a core member of FTX & Alameda and a world-class billionaire on the Forbes Rich List, this mysterious person has no digital identity, no resume, and even no photos. The Block wrote an article introducing the mysterious man Gary Wang. The original author is Kari McMahon, and it was compiled and integrated by Odaily Planet Daily.
Who is Gary Wang?
At least $1 billion in customer funds disappeared from FTX, according to people familiar with the matter.
On the afternoon of the 12th, Reuters' report also revealed more doubts. The FTX legal and financial team found that SBF implemented a so-called "backdoor" in FTX's accounting system, which was built using custom software. The "backdoor" allowed SBF to perform work that could change the company's financial situation without alerting others (including external accountants). It was through this setting that SBF transferred $10 billion in funds to Alameda without triggering any risk warnings.
Such a high-powered backdoor is certainly not something that ordinary employees can do. The media and investors turned their attention to Gary Wang.
On the FTX official website, only SBF and Gary Wang have the title of "Founder". In addition, Gary Wang also serves as the CTO of FTX. He is quite low-key. As a super-rich man with a net worth of nearly 6 billion US dollars, even Forbes could not find a suitable photo for him.
(Gary Wang ranks 227th on the Forbes rich list)
The “Team” page on the FTX website shows that Gary Wang worked for Google for a while after earning a degree in mathematics and computer science from MIT. In the full page of team members, only Gary Wang’s profile picture is a back view. In addition, Gary Wang’s LinkedIn page has also been deleted, and the website of FTX investor Sequoia Capital also only lists a photo of his back.
(The picture is from the FTX official website, which has now been deleted)
Four former colleagues of Gary Wang who wished to remain anonymous admitted that Gary Wang was a taciturn person who was obsessed with programming.
“From an employee perspective, Gary was always very distant and he wasn’t usually in the office,” said a source familiar with Alameda and FTX’s operations. “He liked to work from home, and he was pretty much the only one who could work from home. Everyone else always had to be in the office, and Gary was always an exception.”
The source then added that Gary’s only interest was sitting in his room programming. “He always gave me the impression of ‘tell me what to do and leave me alone.’ Whenever the SBF reached a critical moment, Gary was not around. Gary was just a weapon to be deployed.”
“Minimal” engineering team
FTX is known for its lean engineering team, with the exchange originally built by just two developers. SBF told Insider that even by the end of 2021, the exchange and all its subsidiaries were running on just 10 to 25 developers. By comparison, Binance’s open hiring alone includes 185 engineers, while OKX is hiring 43 engineers.
"We only had five engineers," said a source familiar with Alameda. The source also speculated that "in retrospect, it seems like it was because these people had almost root access and they didn't want others to see it."
According to SBF, he himself is not good at programming, so he needs a small engineering team to help him build FTX. In an interview, he once admitted, "Most people think I am a good programmer. But that's not the case. I didn't write any code for FTX. There are many other people in FTX."
A recent Reuters report indicated that SBF had set up a backdoor in FTX. But an FTX investor added, “If there is a backdoor in the infrastructure, it’s hard to imagine that Gary would not know about it.” Another source familiar with FTX and Alameda agreed, saying that Gary Wang is one of the few people with root access to the codebase.
"If Gary hadn't added the code, there's no way he wouldn't have noticed it," one source said.
A mysterious person
One insider said that while he had met Wang, they had never spoken and "he rarely spoke to people." "When you had to talk to Gary, he would respond in batches every week. He was difficult to contact."
An employee who worked at FTX and Alameda said that Gary didn't talk much and didn't need much, but he had a very close relationship with SBF. SBF was the person Gary talked to the most. Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison was one of the only people who could get a quick response from Gary. "It's unclear how involved he was, but he was definitely considered a close circle member." A former employee thought so.
Gary Wang lives in a luxurious penthouse in the upscale community of Albany in the Bahamas, along with SBF, Caroline Ellison and several others.
Short seller Marc Cohodes, who has been warning investors about FTX since May, said in a statement that Gary is not trustworthy.
"Gary Wang has no digital identity, he has no searchable email, phone number, and has not spoken to anyone that I can find. This behavior raises more questions than answers. No man worth $11 billion would hide himself like this."
Benjamin Robertson and Frank Chaparro contributed to this article.