Sam Trabucco Forfeits $70 Million in Real Estate and Luxury Assets to Settle FTX Bankruptcy Claims

The latest chapter in the sprawling FTX bankruptcy saga has emerged with significant financial consequences for another key player. Sam Trabucco, the former co-chief executive officer of Alameda Research, has agreed to surrender approximately $70 million in assets—including San Francisco properties and a high-end yacht—to satisfy creditor claims stemming from the exchange’s catastrophic 2022 collapse. The agreement, filed in November 2025, underscores the intensive asset recovery efforts that trustees continue to pursue against top-tier executives who benefited from the failed crypto empire.

The Specifics: What Sam Trabucco Must Relinquish

The forfeiture represents a substantial financial settlement. Trabucco is required to surrender ownership of two San Francisco residential apartments with a combined valuation of $8.7 million, alongside a 53-foot luxury yacht initially purchased for $2.5 million in March 2022. Beyond these tangible properties, he must relinquish all outstanding claims against the FTX estate valued at approximately $70 million—assets that will flow back to creditors who lost their funds when FTX imploded in December 2022.

Court filings also revealed that Trabucco received nearly $40 million in what are termed “potentially avoidable transfers” during his tenure at Alameda Research. Under bankruptcy law, such transfers can be reclaimed from the estate if they originated from FTX’s accounts, representing additional funds potentially recoverable through the ongoing legal process. This recovery mechanism is designed to claw back enrichment that creditors argue should never have left the company.

Sam Trabucco’s Position at Alameda Research and His Connection to Bankman-Fried

Understanding Sam Trabucco’s role provides crucial context for why regulators are pursuing such aggressive asset recovery. As co-chief executive officer of Alameda Research—the cryptocurrency trading hedge fund founded by Sam Bankman-Fried—Trabucco occupied a position of significant authority during the firm’s most aggressive expansion phase. His departure in August 2022, merely four months before both entities filed for bankruptcy protection, raised questions about his knowledge of deteriorating conditions.

While Trabucco has neither confessed to criminal conduct nor been formally charged with misconduct, his social media commentary from that period suggested Alameda maintained an exceptionally aggressive trading posture with substantial appetite for risk. Publicly, he stopped short of acknowledging fund mismanagement or improper asset allocation—the very issues now central to ongoing investigations. The relationship between Alameda and FTX created intricate cross-financing mechanisms, with prosecutors arguing that these intertwined financial arrangements constituted a primary driver of the exchange’s eventual failure, as capital flowed between entities in ways that destabilized both organizations and endangered customer deposits.

The Broader Legal Framework and Precedent for Asset Recovery

Sam Trabucco’s forfeiture sits within a larger bankruptcy restructuring strategy employed by FTX’s trustee teams to compensate harmed creditors. This action aligns with similar asset recovery actions initiated against other former FTX and Alameda executives implicated in the exchange’s downfall. The bankruptcy filing ranks among the most consequential in recent financial history, with recovery efforts specifically targeting executive enrichment—including substantial salaries, equity distributions, and favorable financial instruments provided to senior leadership.

Sam Bankman-Fried himself confronts multiple criminal allegations encompassing wire fraud, conspiracy, and systematic misappropriation of customer assets and company funds. Beyond criminal accountability, civil recovery actions against executives like Trabucco represent a secondary mechanism for channeling recovered capital back to the creditor class.

The case has exposed significant regulatory gaps in the crypto sector. Institutional controls that typically prevent cross-entity financing schemes and executive self-dealing proved wholly inadequate in the decentralized finance environment. Observers suggest that this landmark insolvency will catalyze stricter compliance requirements and governance standards across digital asset exchanges and trading platforms globally.

Conclusion

The $70 million asset forfeiture by Sam Trabucco marks another critical milestone in FTX’s bankruptcy resolution and creditor compensation initiative. Court-approved seizure of luxury properties, financial claims, and personal holdings against former executives establishes precedent for how aggressively bankruptcy trustees will pursue recovery. As proceedings advance and additional assets are identified, the final creditor recovery percentage will shape both this institution’s resolution and broader expectations for future blockchain sector insolvencies.