Sam Bankman-Fried denies defrauding FTX users at trial

As the final witness in his defense case, the former FTX CEO placed some of the blame for the crypto exchange’s failure on Gary Wang and Nishad Singh.

The jury overseeing the criminal trial of Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried listened to the former FTX CEO’s testimony for the first time, which involved largely denying knowledge of fraudulent activities at the crypto exchange.

According to reports from the New York courtroom on Oct. 27, Bankman-Fried suggested Wang, the former chief technology officer at FTX, had been partly responsible for creating the “allow negative” button for Alameda Research. The feature gave the crypto hedge fund the ability to trade more funds than it had available.

“At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure what was happened,” Bankman-Fried reportedly said regarding Alameda’s line of credit. “I thought the funds were being held in a bank account, or sent to FTX in stablecoins. If Alameda was keeping it, I figured it would be reflected as a negative number on FTX.”

On former Alameda co-CEOs Caroline Ellison and Sam Trabucco, Bankman-Fried reportedly said they were “a good team” but criticized Ellison’s experience: 

“Caroline was a good manager, empathetic. She was not a software developer. She was good at doing research. She had not focused on risk management.”

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available.