“Digital Currency”

The jury at Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial on Monday saw a photograph of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder with the singer Katy Perry and the actor Orlando Bloom at last year’s Super Bowl, as prosecutors sought to bolster their case that the failed crypto mogul squandered customer money on efforts to boost his stature.

Prosecutors displayed the image as Nishad Singh, FTX’s former director of engineering, testified about how the company spent hundreds of millions of dollars on celebrity partnerships and marketing in early 2022, months before the exchange declared bankruptcy amid a wave of customer withdrawals.

When Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange collapsed in November, one of his oldest friends sent him a message of support.

“I love you, Sam,” said Adam Yedidia, a college classmate of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s who went on to work for him at the exchange, FTX. “I am not going anywhere. Don’t worry.”

Within days, Mr. Yedidia had resigned from FTX. And last week, at Mr. Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial in federal court in Manhattan, Mr. Yedidia showed up to testify for the prosecution, and recounted the conversation to the jury.

First they were colleagues on a trading floor in New York. Then they were friends running a start-up together in Hong Kong. Eventually they became partners in a turbulent office romance chronicled in tabloid headlines around the world.

On Tuesday, in a packed Manhattan courtroom, the relationship between Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison took another turn. The two faced each other for the first time since the cryptocurrency trading companies they built together, FTX and Alameda Research, collapsed in November.

Ms. Ellison, 28, took the stand on the fifth day of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial on conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from FTX’s implosion. She began by taking more than 10 seconds to identify Mr. Bankman-Fried when a prosecutor asked her to point him out.

The founder of failed crypto exchange FTX blamed his ex-girlfriend when the scale of the company’s $11billion debts became clear.

Court documents showed that Sam Bankman-Fried wrote to his male colleagues that Caroline Ellison ‘is not a natural leader, and probably never will be.’

Bankman-Fried said in the September 2022 document that she made a ‘critical’ error by failing to make a risky investment he suggested to her.

Former crypto CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has appeared in a New York court to answer to charges that his bankrupted financial empire was “built on lies”.

Prosecutors told the court on Wednesday that the former FTX boss stole billions from clients and investors to “commit fraud on a massive scale”.

His lawyers deny all charges, saying the so-called “crypto king” is a “math nerd” who was acting in “good faith”.

The blockbuster trial is expected to last about six weeks.

I first heard about Sam Bankman-Fried at the end of 2021 from a friend who wanted me to help him figure out who he was. My friend was about to close a deal with Sam that would bind their fates, through an exchange of shares in each other’s companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He remained uneasy. He thought he understood FTX, the crypto exchange that Sam had built, but he didn’t have as good a feel for Sam himself. He’d asked around about Sam and discovered that, as little as he felt he really knew him, other people, even people who had invested millions of dollars in Sam’s company, knew even less.

Travis Kling has spent a lot of time this year focusing on his mental, physical and spiritual health. That has been his coping mechanism since his cryptocurrency firm, Ikigai Asset Management, lost most of its assets from last year’s collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, where he was a customer.

Mr. Kling said he harbored no hatred for Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder. But as Mr. Bankman-Fried’s criminal fraud trial kicks off on Tuesday, Mr. Kling is eager to see the onetime crypto mogul — who is now viewed as its biggest villain — held accountable for his actions.

“That will be cathartic for the crypto ecosystem,” Mr. Kling said.

When FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire teetered on the brink of collapse, top lieutenant Caroline Ellison addressed a group of employees. One part of the empire, trading firm

Alameda Research, had made risky bets using customer deposits from its sister crypto-exchange FTX and now the money was gone.

When an employee asked who decided to take customer funds, Ellison hesitated, then said, “Sam, I guess.”

Gossip that top executives at bankrupt crypto giant FTX were enmeshed in a sex-fueled “polycule” is exaggerated at best, according to a former employee — who claims they instead spent their free time on nerdy pursuits like board games, hackathons and role-playing sessions.

Rumors of a polyamorous clique of crypto nerds at FTX have run rampant since last fall – particularly focused on Sam Bankman-Fried, the 31-year-old kingpin whose epic fraud trial is slated to begin Monday in Manhattan federal court; and his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old former boss of FTX’s hedge fund Alameda Research who is expected to testify against him.