Sam Bankman-Fried, who was arrested on fraud charges last year after the collapse of his cryptocurrency firm, must await trial behind bars, a US judge has ordered. The 31-year-old was handcuffed in court and led away.
Judge Lewis Kaplan had agreed with prosecutors who had accused Mr Bankman-Fried of trying to intimidate witnesses expected to testify against him.
The hearing on Mr Bankman-Fried’s bail came ahead of trial, which is scheduled for October.
The 31-year-old was arrested in December after being accused of misusing billions of dollars from investors and customers of his bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to pay for property, political donations and plug losses at his hedge fund, Alameda Research.
In 2022, Bankman-Fried had transferred at least $4 billion from FTX to Alameda Research, without any disclosure to the companies’ insiders or the public. The money transferred included customer funds, and that it was ostensibly backed by FTT and shares in Robinhood. Bankman-Fried had disclosed that Alameda owed FTX about $10 billion which was secured through customer funds held by FTX when FTX had, at the time, $16 billion in customer assets. On November 17, Ray stated in a sworn declaration submitted in bankruptcy court that according to the firm’s records, Alameda Research had lent $1 billion to Bankman-Fried.
In November 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao revealed on Twitter that his firm intended to sell its holdings of FTT, FTX’s token. Binance received $529 million worth of FTT as part of a sale of its equity in FTX in 2021. FTX collapsed almost immediately.
Bankman-Fried had shared the documents to try to make his case in the media that Ms Ellison was a “jilted lover” who had worked alone.
They also argued that it would have a chilling effect on other potential witnesses because it could make them fear “personal humiliation and efforts to discredit their reputation” beyond what would be permitted in court. They said he had participated in roughly 1,000 phone calls with members of the press in recent months.
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I put 60% probability of “suicide” in jail. He’ll never make it to trial. Too many powerful political people benefited from his shenanigans in likely less than legal ways and they don’t want it gettign out.
SBF is scum, however …
He’s innocent until proven guilty & retains 1st Amendment rights. How does revealing facts, such as documents, or talking with reporters result being lead away in cuffs?
He violated bail conditions after being warned. according to the rules, his being out on bail should have been revoked long ago.
Earlier, he messaged a witness and suggested they collude about what story to tell. I didn’t understand why they didn’t revoke his bail immediately, then.
I also don’t understand why they don’t consider him a flight risk. If he has a few billion hidden away somewhere, he could easily afford to organize a secret flight to a country without extradition.
When will people start to realize that fraud is everywhere in these crapto-currencies? Multi-million dollar thefts are losses are more common than not, leading to calls to regulate or at least insure them, making them just much worse versions of real currencies and banks. So much for DEFI and economic independence. The usual big players are making the real money now anyway, with their Wall Street ETFs that can time and even control the markets, etc.
Even Bitcoin, by far the most stable and investable CC, is less than half of what it was 2 years ago, with no near time prospect of going higher in this scandal-ridden industry, even as new platforms and hype threaten ever more wipeouts and crimes.
It’s almost impossible to spend CC on anything real and the smart and legit merchants immediately convert BTC to dollars, perhaps profiting off instant conversion rates in these volatile vehicles at the expense of their customers. In any case, volatility like this in a currency is something to avoid, not embrace. Day-to-day high single to double digit moves in currencies are signs of sick economies, not thriving ones, more Argentina than United States. Currencies should be boring and stable, not speculative and fraudulent.
Charlie Munger was right. These things never should have existed in the first place.
After Sam serves his sentence in a federal prison he will be extradited to the Bahamas. That boy has a long life ahead of him.
Sorry, missed it. FTT is/was a cryptocoin created by Sam Bankman-Freid. Essentially worthless as collateral once things go bad.
What is FTT?
He is a bad boy.
And he looks wrong.