Sam Bankman-Fried's trial to test dueling explanations for FTX’s collapse

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In U.S. prosecutors' telling, Sam Bankman-Fried embezzled money from depositors in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange ever since he launched it in 2019, and the resulting shortfall led directly to its collapse as crypto prices swooned last year.

, like a bank, could make investments with customers' money as long as they were able to withdraw it - and he did not know that actions taken by his closest colleagues had jeopardized the availability of funds.

He plastered FTX's logo on a basketball arena in Miami and on MLB baseball umpires' uniforms. He hired star athletes and actors to endorse the platform as safe. And as his net worth surged to $26 billion, he pledged to give most of his wealth away to philanthropic causes such as pandemic preparedness.

in FTX deposits to plug losses at Alameda as well as to buy luxury real estate and donate to U.S. political campaigns to promote crypto-friendly legislation. "It's always been Bankman-Fried's best strategy to show that he's not a criminal mastermind - he was just out of his depth," said Mark Kasten, a defense lawyer at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney who is not involved in the case.

In personal writings by Bankman-Fried that were also published by the New York Times, on Sept. 14, he sought to push the blame for Alameda's failure onto Ellison.

 

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