SBF witness facts after first few days of trial 💥
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👇 1) The prosecution’s strategy appears to clearly show intent by SBF to commit fraud clearly clearly and that only he called the shots. So far, this strategy seems to work without any faults.
👇 2) The defense on the other side is trying to make this case about the technicalities of the crypto markets, something that Judge Kaplan has said prior he does not want to see. Hence, the judge appears frequently annoyed by the questioning by SBF’s defense.
👇 3) During the jury (de)selection, the defense tried to eliminate young men as they were likelier to have lost money trading crypto – or would know other men who lost money in crypto. One of the jurors works the night shift in his ‘day job’ and frequently appears asleep in the courtroom.
👇 4) So far, there are zero surprises for anybody who read the book ‘Crypto Titans: How trillions were made and billions lost in the cryptocurrency markets’ as most of the details have already been revealed.
👇 5) Gary Wang Says SBF Lied in Tweet: ‘FTX Was Not Fine’. Wang testified that Alameda's negative balance was nearly always visible on one of Bankman-Fried's six monitors. Theoretically, Michael Lewis (or any other journalist or investor invited to his desk) could've spotted it.
👇 6) FTX's trading revenues were not enough to cover Alameda's losses as early as 2019. According to Wang, Alameda was already dipping into customer funds by late 2019/early 2020. As we wrote in the ‘Crypto Titans’ book, Alameda might already have had negative equity since 2019.
👇 7) The “allow negative” addition to FTX code’s, according to Wang, allowed Alameda to achieve a negative balance that was more than FTX had in revenue in 2020 — $200 million versus $150 million.
👇 8) Wang’s said on July 31, 2019, SBF responded to a tweet alleging "Alameda is a liquidity provider on FTX, but their account is just like everyone else's". The same day — July 31, 2019 — FTX granted Alameda a negative balance feature, meaning it could withdraw funds even if the balance was negative. Wang said SBF specifically asked for the coding that enabled the negative feature.
👇 9) June 2022: It was identified that Alameda Research had an $11 billion liability to FTX — and it still could withdraw unlimited funds. September 2022: SBF is looking to shut down Alameda, Wang told the court Wang testifies that he learned from former Alameda CEO Ellison that Alameda borrowed $14 billion from FTX, meaning it couldn’t be shut down.
👇 10) In late 2021, Wang discovered Alameda had withdrawn $3 billion from its $65 billion line of credit.
👇 11) The backstop fund showed a fake and made-up number. FTX’s selling point was their supposedly superior liquidation engine, and based on this backstop comment, the liquidation might have never worked as intended.
👇 12) Wang also told the court about a $1 million personal loan he received and a $200 million to $300 million loan in his name from Alameda that was never deposited into his account, but rather was used to make investments into other companies on behalf of FTX. That was all done by Bankman-Fried, he testified.
👇 13) The jury decides guilty or not guilty on the charges. Then, in 90 days or more later, Judge Kaplan would impose a sentence on any guilty count. Of course, there may be other charges tried in March 2024, which might push back any sentencing on convictions here
👇 14) Caroline Ellison is scheduled to testify on Tuesday.
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