Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and Solana: These were the coins mentioned during hearings on the first day of the criminal trial of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. However, the name of the exchange’s local altcoin project FTT was not specifically mentioned. Here are the details…
Bitcoin and these altcoin projects were mentioned in the SBF case
The sharp decline of altcoin FTT last November goes hand in hand with the sudden collapse of FTX. But as federal prosecutors presented opening statements in New York district court, there was an apparent effort to familiarize jurors with the realm of digital assets. Trying to capture the essence of the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thane Rehn pointed to Bankman-Fried and told jurors, “This man stole billions of dollars from thousands of people.” “He spent other people’s money for himself.” she said.
FTX filed for bankruptcy last year after a steep drop in FTT’s price sparked a deadly rush of withdrawals. The exchange’s inability to give money to customers heading for the exit door forced FTX to admit that it did not have a 1:1 reserve of customer assets. It was reported that Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research had a large amount of tokens on its balance sheet. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao signaled that his exchange would completely sell its FTT assets before FTX later collapsed.
FTT went unnoticed
Bankman-Fried faces seven fraud and conspiracy charges. He pleaded not guilty. Bankman-Fried’s lead attorney, Mark Cohen of Cohen & Gresser, argued that it was the “perfect storm” that sent FTX into a tailspin despite Bankman-Fried’s “good intentions” and “reasonable business precautions.” Cohen may have been referring to FTT when he told jurors that customer funds transferred from FTX to Alameda were loans and not “a secret that [Bankman-Fried] only shared with a few people in his inner circle,” as prosecutors claimed.
“You will learn that Sam believed, reasonably believed, that FTX’s loans to Alameda were authorized and backed by reasonable collateral,” Cohen said. “And far from being secret, these were open and known within both companies,” he added. FTT kept a low profile, unlike other tokens that came to the fore as the government called its first two witnesses to the stand. The government first summoned a commodity trader named Marc-Antoine Julliard. The French-born UK resident, who lost nearly GBP100,000 in FTX’s failure, effectively promoted cryptocurrency as an asset to the eight women and four men on the jury.
Former FTX employee also testified
When asked to give a few examples of cryptocurrencies, Julliard said, “Bitcoin [and] Ethereum are the main two I would look at.” He also talked about a situation where he deposited Dogecoin into his FTX account. “Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana are all popular cryptocurrencies,” said Adam Yedidia, the government’s second witness. Yedidia is a former employee of Alameda and FTX who met Bankman-Fried in college. He said he resigned from FTX “after learning that Alameda Research was using […] FTX customer deposits to repay debt to creditors.”
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