Consultant Protected Assets During FTX Hack With Personal Hardware Wallet

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Kumanan Ramanathan, a consultant during the FTX hack, utilized his personal Ledger Nano hardware wallet to safeguard vulnerable assets, as reported by Wired.

The incident occurred on November 11, 2022 and caused great concern among employees and executives when a significant amount of funds were withdrawn from the company, estimated to be over $400 million in cryptocurrency.

However, thanks to Ramanathan’s actions, the rest of the funds were protected. The hack was first noticed by LedgerX CEO Zach Dexter, who quickly organized an emergency call for FTX management. Witnesses recount that the hacker brazenly withdrew the funds in front of the employees, but the exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was not present at the time.

CTO Gary Wang had difficulty convincing others to take action to safeguard the remaining funds because many were skeptical and believed that the funds were already gone.

“Are you going to change the keys to the chicken coop when the fox is already inside?” questioned Ramanathan’s colleagues.