He stated that Alameda “borrowed” them
On Friday, Sam Bankman-Fried sat on the stand, as soon as once more in an outsized grey go well with and purple tie, and testified in entrance of a jury. He’s on trial for seven fees associated to fraud and cash laundering and has been sitting silently the previous 4 weeks, ready for his probability to talk.
Bankman-Fried co-founded FTX in 2019 alongside Gary Wang, after they co-founded crypto buying and selling agency Alameda Research within the fall of 2017. At the time, they had been 25 years previous with no historical past of beginning an organization, he stated. When he acquired into the crypto world, he stated he knew “basically nothing.” But over time, he stated, his imaginative and prescient grew to “build the best [crypto exchange] product on the market” and to “move the ecosystem forward.”
“Turned out [to be] the opposite of that,” Bankman-Fried stated. “A lot of people got hurt.”
When requested by his lead lawyer, Mark Cohen, whether or not he defrauded or took buyer funds, Bankman-Fried stated, “No, I did not.”
On Thursday, Judge Lewis Kaplan heard from Bankman-Fried with no jury to find out whether or not his testimony might be shared with jurors. Among these subjects: FTX’s information retention coverage, the truth that he “skimmed over” phrases of service, Alameda’s use of the exchanges’ buyer funds, and extra details about Dan Friedberg, who Bankman-Fried employed to be FTX’s normal counsel.
On the stand on Friday, Bankman-Fried appeared extra considerate together with his solutions than he had the day before today. “I made a number of small mistakes,” Bankman-Fried stated Friday. But he stated the most important mistake was having no threat administration group at FTX, which led to “significant oversights.”