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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial is all set to begin tomorrow, i.e. on Oct. 3, 2023, in a federal courtroom in Manhattan. He currently faces up to 115 years behind bars. The executive faces fraud and conspiracy accusations related to the operation and subsequent collapse of FTX. Unlike his colleagues, the FTX founder has pleaded ‘not guilty’ against all charges against him. Tomorrow, Sam Bankman-Fried will stand trial for one of the biggest frauds in US history. SBF is facing up to 115 years in prison. pic.twitter.com/jPM8zMf7sj — Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) October 3, 2023 Also Read: Sam Bankman-Fried: Being Sent to Jail Violates ‘Free Speech Right’ Bankman-Fried was granted a $250 million bail towards the end of Q4 2022. That had been recognized as the highest pre- trial bail bond in the history of the U.S. In August, U.S. prosecutors asked the court to revoke Bankman-Fried ’s $250 million bond. The executive...

Initially offered $200,000 annually at FTX, Bankman sought $1 million, even involving SBF’s mother in the negotiations. A new court filing reveals that Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) father was unhappy with his salary at FTX, so he dragged SBF’s mother into the discussion to “enrich themselves.” Per the court filing, Joseph Bankman had an initial salary of $200,000 yearly at FTX before the collapse. Still, he desired a $1 million annual compensation for his involvement in the company.  You might also like: FTX sues SBF’s parents over misappropriating ‘millions’ of dollars Moreover, Bankman pulled Barbara Fried, SBF’s mother, into the discussion to get the desired salary.  “Gee, Sam I don’t know what to say here. This is the first [I] have heard of the 200K a year salary ! Putting Barbara on this.” Bankman told SBF, per the court filing. According to the recent filing, SBF soon gifted $10 million from funds generated from FTX’s hedge fund, Alameda Research Ltd. In additi...

Galaxy Digital set to manage the sale of bankrupt FTX’s crypto holdings and facilitate staking of certain tokens to generate passive yield. The company filed a motion with the District of Delaware Bankruptcy Court on Aug. 24 seeking authorization and approval of guidelines for the sale of digital assets recovered during ongoing bankruptcy proceedings. The filing outlines FTX’s requests and plans to transfer some $7 billion worth of recovered cryptocurrency tokens under the management of Galaxy Digital following the collapse of the exchange in 2022. Related: FTX​ releases restructuring plan, hints at rebooted offshore exchange FTX intends to provision for the potential sale of its crypto currency holdings and stake tokens through Galaxy Digital as set out in its preliminary statement. The filing notes a “comprehensive manage ment and monetization plan” for its crypto currency holdings that intends to reduce exposure to volatility and potential fiat repayments to creditors. FTX inten...

Advise of Counsel Push to Exonerate SBF This kind of defense is usually effective for deflecting the responsibility of the defendant for the crimes charged. Although, it has to be backed up with concrete evidence, memos or other forms of written communication that truly demonstrate that such advice was given as well as how much it was relied upon. advertisement If adopted in this case, this would allow the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX to argue that he had no intentions to break the law and was only following the advice and guidance of his lawyers who assured him that his actions at FTX were satisfactory.  Consequently, his argument could weaken the testimony of one of the prosecutor’s key witnesses who was the former in-house lawyer for FTX. According to court papers, this witness is tagged “Witness-1.” The advice-of-counsel defense would also nullify the attorney-client privacy privilege....

Blockchain analytics company Arkham Intelligence announced a bounty for information about the identity of the hacker that compromised the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In the announcement, Arkham Intelligence promised a bounty of 100,000 ARKM (the platform’s own tokens) for a value exceeding $46,000. To obtain the bounty , “users need to identify the person or entity behind the hack.” Participants also need to deposit 10 ARKM — a measure meant to prevent spam submissions. The deposit of the person who will provide the right information will be returned — and provide context for their decision, including research, public information, and cited sources credibly proving that the conclusion they came to is correct. You might also like: FTX hacker gets tips on how to launder $400 million When FTX was in the midst of its collapse back in November 2022, FTX representatives reported that the exchange fell victim to a hack that resulted in the loss o...

While the media focuses on the ongoing fallout of FTX and Alameda Research, what’s still curious and murky is how the two firms actually made money. Is it possible that Chinese capital flight helped fund the American-made cryptocurrency ‘saviour?’ Rumors suggest that Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) had taken advantage of the ‘Kimchi Arbitrage’ and the Japanese arbitrage — the discrepancy between the price of cryptocurrencies in Korea or Japan with the prices of cryptocurrencies in the US, which meant buying in whichever country presented a discount and selling in the country presenting a premium. While there absolutely was an arbitrage play during Alameda’s startup period, the idea that SBF — a twenty-something fresh off the heels of a stint at Jane Street — could make it work and sustain it, while billionaires and giant funds couldn’t, seems unlikely. Risky loans for cash-strapped startup Leading figures in the Effective Altruist movement SBF and Tara Mac Aul...

University-affiliated research initiatives received more than $13 million in grants from FTX Future Fund, with several students getting $100,000 in grants. The collapse of the FTX exchange and its subsidiaries in November 2022 also led to the shutdown of its philanthropic arm, FTX Future Fund. The philanthropic arm had pledged $1 billion in donations in 2022 towards research academics across prestigious universities. However, the team behind the project resigned right after FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, 2022. Many scholars and researchers who were early recipients of the grant are now stuck in limbo over payment of further grants for their programs. According to a report published by Reuters, many Ph.D. students who were studying on the FTX grant were forced to drop out of the course owing to the fear of repayment. A summary of the FTX Future Fund's activities revealed that the fund was sponsored by former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. The focus of the grant revolved around resea...

FTX EU was only approved by the Cyprus regulator in March, 2022, about seven months before FTX collapsed in November. The European arm of FTX, FTX EU has launched a website to allow European customers to submit withdraw al requests. It comes nearly five months after the global trading platform collapsed and went bankrupt in early November. The new website domain name — https://ftxeurope.eu/ — was reportedly approved by the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission according to a report in Finance Magnates. A screenshot of the newly launched website to withdraw funds from FTX EU. Source: FTX Europe The new domain will not offer any products or services other than to pay back impacted customers, the report said, referencing an email received by FTX Europe. "Please be informed that our new domain, www.ftxeurope.eu, has been approved by our regulator CySEC as you have well identified. The website will only be used for all FTX EU LTD clients to be able to claim their FIAT balances....

Just the top 10 major cryptocurrency exploits garnered over $2 billion for malicious actors in a year that was marred with bankruptcies and collapses. It's been a turbulent year for the cryptocurrency industry — market prices have taken a huge dip, crypto giants have collapsed and billions have been stolen in crypto exploits and hacks. It was not even halfway through October when Chainalysis declared 2022 to be the “biggest year ever for hacking activity.” As of Dec. 29, the 10 largest exploits of 2022 have seen $2.1 billion stolen from crypto protocols. Below are those exploits and hacks, ranked from smallest to largest. 10: Beanstalk Farms exploit — $76M Stablecoin protocol Beanstalk Farms suffered a $76 million exploit on April 18 from an attacker using a flash loan to buy governance tokens. This was used to pass two proposals that inserted malicious smart contracts. The exploit was initially thought to have cost around $182 million as Beanstalk was drained of all its collater...

Bitcoin and Ethereum are not part of the surprising list of five best and worst-performing cryptocurrencies for 2022. Cointelegraph looks back on the best and worst-performing crypto currencies of 2022 among the top 100 assets by market capitalization. We used the highest and the lowest year-to-date (YTD) returns through the close of Dec. 25, 2022. Overall, Cryptoindex.com 100 (CIX100), an index that tracks the 100 best-performing crypto currencies, fell nearly 68% YTD, suggesting most top coins underperformed in 2022. CIX100 weekly price chart. Source: TradingView Stablecoins are naturalomitted from the list below. Similarly, coins tracking the value of gold and similar mainstream assets have also been ignored. Instead, the coins mentioned below include decentralized currencies, smart contract tokens, exchange tokens, and others. Top five crypto of 2022 1. GMX (GMX) YTD return: 111% Sector: Decentralized Exchange Market Cap: $379.4 million GMX acts as a utility and a governance to...