A thief who stole more than $470m (£383m) in cryptocurrency when FTX crashed is trying to cash it out while the exchange’s founder is on trial.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s high-profile court case began last week. The former crypto mogul denies fraud.

After lying dormant for nine months, experts say $20m of the stolen stash is being laundered into traditional money every day.

New analysis shows how the mystery thief is trying to hide their tracks.

FTX was once one of the biggest exchange platforms in the world allowing crypto investors to buy, trade and store digital currencies. It went bankrupt on 11 November 2022, with billions of dollars of customer funds missing.

Mr Bankman-Fried is pleading not guilty to misusing customer funds and money laundering while bankruptcy lawyers are trying to locate the missing billions.

On the day FTX collapsed, hundreds of millions of dollars of cryptocurrency controlled by the exchange were stolen by an unidentified thief that is believed to still have control of the funds.

No one knows how the thief – or thieves – was able to get digital keys to FTX crypto wallets, but it is thought it was either an insider or a hacker who was able to steal the information.

The criminal moved 9,500 Ethereum coins, then worth $15.5m, from a wallet belonging to FTX, to a new wallet.

Over the next few hours, hundreds of othe