ftx trial – The News Desk

Sam Bankman-Fried Has Been Found Guilty of Fraud

3Nov

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Sam Bankman-Fried Has Been Found Guilty of Fraud

The US Department of Justice (DoJ), says Estes, will consider Bankman-Fried’s conviction a “signature victory,” as its first high-profile crypto scalp. Cryptocurrency has been used for more than a decade to conceal payment for illicit products, enable extortion-based cyberattacks and launder the proceeds of criminal activity. In 2021, the DoJ announced the formation of a specialist crypto enforcement team, to “tackle complex investigations and prosecutions of criminal misuses of cryptocurrency,” it said. But until now, the agency had secured few landmark convictions.Though he was charged with old-fashioned fraud, Bankman-Fried was crypto royalty, which lends his conviction a symbolic importance, says Estes. The DoJ, she says, has sent “a message to the crypto industry that fraud and wheel...

Sam Bankman-Fried Sealed His Fate Long Before the FTX Trial

1Nov

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Sam Bankman-Fried Sealed His Fate Long Before the FTX Trial

The simplest legal advice is to say nothing at all. Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of crypto exchange FTX, who recently took to the stand at his own fraud trial, isn’t very good at that. But, most likely, it won’t be his testimony that seals his fate. It will be the monthlong media tour he embarked on late last year, after FTX fell.Bankman-Fried is standing trial on seven counts of fraud in connection with the collapse of FTX. The exchange fell into bankruptcy after users found they could no longer withdraw their funds, worth billions of dollars in aggregate. The money was missing, the US government claims, because Bankman-Fried had funneled it into a sibling company, Alameda Research, and used it for risky trades, debt repayments, personal loans, political donations, venture bets, and variou...

Sam Bankman-Fried Will Testify in His Own Trial. It’s a Legal Hail Mary

26Oct

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Sam Bankman-Fried Will Testify in His Own Trial. It’s a Legal Hail Mary

Sam Bankman-Fried will take the stand at his own trial, his legal counsel has confirmed. The founder of stricken crypto exchange FTX has endured three weeks of bruising testimony in federal court from ex-colleagues, peers, and other witnesses. But Bankman-Fried will now take the opportunity to relay his own version of events to the jury.The US government has accused Bankman-Fried of masterminding a multibillion-dollar fraud, whereby funds belonging to FTX customers were swept into a sibling company, Alameda Research, and either used to back up risky crypto bets or spent on debt repayments, personal loans, political donations, and luxuries of various sorts. At trial, he is facing seven charges in connection with the alleged fraud.In deciding whether to testify, the stakes for Bankman-Fried...

SBF’s Magic Hair and Other Big Moments From the FTX Trial

12Oct

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SBF’s Magic Hair and Other Big Moments From the FTX Trial

During cross examination, defense attorney Mark Cohen continually tried to stress that Alameda’s total net value assets were the same across the alternatives, and Ellison kept responding that, yes, but, she said, the balance sheets were still misleading.Things Sam Is Freaking Out AboutAccording to Ellison’s “things Sam is freaking out about” document, Bankman-Fried was stressed about “getting regulators to crack down on Binance,” bad PR, raising money from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and possibly buying Snapchat.In time, the bad PR (and worse than bad PR) came true, SBF didn’t raise money from Mohammed bin Salman, and he certainly didn’t buy Snapchat, but regulators have cracked down on Binance.SBF’s Magic Hair and Loose MoralsBankman-Fried got a haircut for the trial, which i...

Everybody’s Talking About the Wrong Sam Bankman-Fried Book

6Oct

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Everybody’s Talking About the Wrong Sam Bankman-Fried Book

Lewis got more access to Sam Bankman-Fried than anyone, but his book doesn’t tell a new story. It’s a perfectly serviceable primer for people who haven’t been following the FTX saga (I’ll probably give it to my dad, and he’ll probably love it), but for readers who have been following this case it’s a familiar yarn. Stale, even. Part of this is the inevitable consequence of choosing a subject who loves the spotlight; if you’ve read any of the prodigious reporting on SBF from the The New Yorker, Vox, Bloomberg, New York magazine, The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Forbes, and so on and so forth, there’s no big ah-ha moment to be had, just a few moderately interesting new anecdotes told in an engaging way. Anyone who has read anything about...

Sam Bankman-Fried Made Reasonable Business Decisions, Lawyers Claim

4Oct

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Sam Bankman-Fried Made Reasonable Business Decisions, Lawyers Claim

Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX may have lost at least $8 billion in customer money, but he “didn’t intend to defraud anyone,” his defense team said Wednesday during the opening arguments of his highly anticipated trial. Though legal experts had long speculated that Bankman-Fried, or SBF for short, would take a “blame the lawyers” approach, the defense painted a picture of a business leader acting “in good faith” but brought down by inexperience and the inherent volatility of crypto.In October of last year, Bankman-Fried, the MIT-educated son of two Stanford Law School professors, was one of the highest-profile CEOs in the world. After founding FTX just four years ago, he built it into one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, amassing billions and becoming a po...

3Oct

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Sam Bankman-Fried Is a Terrible Client

In the weeks after Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange began to crumble last November, he chose to ignore the most basic piece of legal advice: Say nothing, or risk incriminating yourself. He took media interviews. He appeared on podcasts. He tweeted incessantly. He started his own Substack. He promised to testify in front of Congress, though he was arrested before he got the chance.Starting today, Bankman-Fried will stand trial in a New York court, accused of seven separate counts of fraud against customers, investors, and lenders. FTX collapsed after users tried to withdraw their money from the exchange but were unable to because, the Department of Justice alleges, Bankman-Fried had funneled the money into a sibling business, Alameda Research, where it was spent on high-risk crypto ...