Following a month-long trial, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted in federal court on Thursday on seven counts related to defrauding investors of billions of dollars.
Thursday’s conviction came after it was discovered last November that FTX and Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research had notable overlaps on their balance sheets. This called into question FTX’s liquidity, prompting users to withdraw $6 billion from the company and leading to its bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried, or SBF, ultimately admitted to “funneling billions of dollars in customer funds to his own hedge fund,” which “upend[ed] the entire cryptocurrency sector.”
Federal prosecutors went on to file charges the following month.
