“Digital Currency”

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has issued his first detailed legal defense since prosecutors accused him of fraud, seeking to dismiss several of the charges and claiming that the high-powered law firm representing FTX in its bankruptcy has been doing the government’s bidding.

In court filings late Monday, lawyers for Mr. Bankman-Fried said FTX and its lawyers at the firm Sullivan & Cromwell had become de facto agents of federal prosecutors building the criminal case against him and might be withholding crucial evidence.

“FTX’s legal advisors went to the government to accuse Mr. Bankman-Fried behind his back without knowing the full facts, and ultimately forced him to step down as C.E.O.,” the lawyers wrote.

This sounds like the “If we had more time we coulda covered it up” defense.

Early adopters thought cryptocurrencies would be free from prying eyes. But tracking the flow of funds has become a big business.

Before a new breed of cryptocurrency detectives helped bring him down, Ryan Felton marketed his crypto scheme with a grandiose promise: He was creating “Netflix on the blockchain.”

He called the crypto-themed streaming service FLiK. For a small amount of the popular digital currency Ether, customers could purchase a FLiK token, which would give them access to shows and movies broadcast on the new platform. Mr. Felton described the project as an “entertainment revolution”; crypto enthusiasts bought more than $2 million worth of FLiK coins.

But the streaming business never materialized. Instead, Mr. Felton bought a $1.5 million house, along with $32,000 in diamonds. He spent $180,000 more on a red Ferrari.

Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly joked about his doomed hedge fund Alameda Research losing track of as much as $50 million in assets, telling another executive: “Such is life.”

“Alameda is unauditable” and “hilariously beyond any threshold of any auditor being able to even get partially through an audit,” Bankman-Fried wrote in an email about the now-defunct Alameda that was cited in court papers by FTX.

This is bad, a former senior employee who resigned on principle details his ignored warnings to SBF and his insider cronies.

FTX’s ex-US boss saw bonus slashed after ‘protracted disagreement’ with SBF: report

The US has accused former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried of paying a $40mn bribe to one or more Chinese government officials in a revised indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday.

Prosecutors allege Bankman-Fried sent the bribe in cryptocurrency to Chinese officials in order to regain access to trading accounts that had been frozen by law enforcement in the country. The accounts were linked to Alameda Research, FTX’s sister company.

The new bribery charge was added to twelve counts already faced by the former FTX chief, whose exchange collapsed in November last year after it was unable to meet a wave of withdrawal demands from customers.

Maybe wonderboy will do serious time. Maybe.

Ontario’s self-described crypto king was abducted, tortured, and beaten for days as his kidnappers looked to solicit millions in ransom, his father told a court in December.

New documents, obtained by CTV News Toronto, include details of the December incident where Aiden Pleterski was allegedly abducted from downtown Toronto and driven around southern Ontario for about three days.

The nearly 750-page report, released on March 14, also contains the latest findings in a months-long pursuit to trace millions of dollars invested into cryptocurrency and foreign exchange with the 23-year-old before he was petitioned into bankruptcy.

Caroline Ellison, the former Alameda CEO who has pleaded guilty to seven criminal charges, received $6 million from the crypto-trading firm – a fraction of the billions paid to Sam Bankman-Fried, court filings reviewed by Insider show.

Alameda Research has been accused of using customer deposits from Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange FTX for daily operations, including risky investments. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 11 after it imploded, wiping out billions in customer deposits.

Disgraced ex-cryptocurrency kingpin Sam Bankman Fried and his since-bankrupt company FTX scored a meeting with a top regulator and sought to sway them to adopt industry-friendly rules months before the exchange’s historic collapse, emails show.

In May 2022, FTX pitched the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on why it was apparently poised to be a “superior” cryptocurrency exchange and was swiftly granted a meeting with its chairman, Martin Gruenberg, according to emails obtained by the watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust and shared with the Washington Examiner.

CEO to Prison Bitch is going to be a harsh adjustment unless his Democrat bribes get him a spot in Club Fed.

Thousands of people are believed to have lost their savings after investing in a cryptocurrency trading app called iEarn Bot.

Experts who have investigated the company say it could be one of the largest crypto scandals to date.

Trading in cryptocurrencies has become popular, with people often promised large rewards over short periods.

Sam Bankman-Fried’s defunct crypto exchange FTX owes Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville resort nearly $600,000 — more than 10 times what was previously thought — and meanwhile racked up a $400,000 DoorDash tab ahead of its bankruptcy, court papers revealed this week.

In November, FTX’s investment affiliate Alameda Research was reportedly sought after by Margaritaville resort in the Bahamas over a $55,319 bar tab.

Sam Bankman-Fried, a co-founder of FTX, received more than $2bn (£1.7bn) from entities linked to the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange into his personal accounts, according to court filings.

Bankman-Fried and five members of his inner circle transferred a total of $3.2bn into their personal accounts through “payments and loans”, according to US bankruptcy court filings in Delaware made by FTX’s new management.

FTX was once worth as much as $40bn but rapidly collapsed in November after a surge in customer withdrawals as rival exchange Binance reversed a plan to bail out its competitor. FTX admitted it did not have sufficient assets in reserve to meet the sudden increase in customer demand.

If true he may well be the next Madoff.