Sam Bankman-Fried’s Alameda, Voyager Digital spar in bankruptcy court

Sam Bankman-Fried became a crypto billionaire and one of the most famous players in the industry by building cryptocurrency exchange FTX into a top site used by traders and investors.

His company was valued at $32 billion in January and currently has more than a million users averaging a total of nearly $10 billion in daily trading volume. But it’s still privately held, so the public doesn’t know how badly it’s been harmed by the “crypto winter” of the last few months. As a point of reference, Coinbase, which is public, has lost roughly two-thirds of its value this year, and mining company Marathon Digital is down by more than half.

While Bankman-Fried, who lives in the Bahamas, has the financial benefit of opacity, his exposure to the broader industry washout became readily apparent last week during a five-hour Chapter 11 bankruptcy hearing in the Southern District of New York for beleaguered crypto brokerage Voyager Digital.

Voyager is among a growing crop of crypto firms to seek bankruptcy protection amid a flood of client withdrawals that followed the plunge in bitcoin, ethereum and other digital currencies. Bankman-Fried’s role in the morass is further complicated, because he also controls quantitative trading firm Alameda Research, which borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from Voyager and became a major equity investor before turning around and offering a bailout package to the firm.

Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried is trying to play the role of industry consolidator, snapping up distressed assets both as a wager on their eventual recovery and to strengthen his foothold in the U.S. In July, FTX purchased crypto lending company BlockFi, and two months earlier Bankman-Fried disclosed a 7.6% stake in beaten-down trading app Robinhood. Bloomberg even reported that FTX was trying to buy Robinhood, though Bankman-Fried has denied any active discussions are underway.

Outside of the U.S., FTX bought Japanese crypto exchange Liquid and has been in discussions to acquire the owner of South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb.

With his activity on hyperdrive, it’s become abundantly clear that Bankman-Fried is not immune to the contagion that’s infected the cryptocurrency industry.

Last week, lawyers for Alameda Research and Voyager tussled in court over what was revealed to be a deep and complex relationship between the two companies. Documents reviewed by CNBC show ties that extend as far back as September 2021. In Voyager’s bankruptcy documents, the firm divulged that Alameda owed the company over $370 million but didn’t say how long Alameda had been a Voyager borrower.

Voyager filed for bankruptcy in early July after suffering huge losses from its exposure to crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital, also known as 3AC, which went under after defaulting on loans from a number of firms in the industry — including…