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Topics: Cryptocurrency
Stewart Perrie
Topics: Cryptocurrency
Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of money laundering and fraud.
The former billionaire's fall from grace was sealed on Thursday (November 2) after a jury returned their verdict on the first day of deliberations.
Bankman-Fried was charged with two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy.
In a month-long trial, the former FTX boss was accused of stealing billions of dollars from his own cryptocurrency exchange.
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FTX was forced to shut down withdrawals in November last year with more than $8 billion in customer funds missing.
Prosecutors claimed the founder orchestrated a scheme to siphon FTX customer money into political contributions, real estate purchases and charitable donations.
They also believed he was lying to his venture capital backers and the companies who lent money to FTX.
His ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, was a star witness for the prosecution's case.
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She took the stand last month and admitted that she and Bankman-Fried committed crimes of fraud, conspiracy and money-laundering together.
When asked to describe the founder's attitude to risk, Ellison said he would call himself 'risk neutral' and 'totally comfortable taking a risk'.
“He talked about being willing to do large coin flips: if it comes up tails he loses $10 million and it comes up heads he makes slightly more than $10 million," she said.
"He said he would be happy to flip a coin if it came up tails and the world was destroyed, as long as if it came up heads the world was more than twice as good.”
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Ellison went on to claim that Bankman-Fried had asked her to study the risks for cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda of investing $3 billion in start-ups in 2021.
She determined there was a 100 per cent chance that the company would be left unable to meet its liabilities, but that Bankman-Fried decided to go ahead with the investments.
He will be sentenced at a later date, however he could face decades in prison.
Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty in the trial and insisted that all the allegations against him were down to 'bad judgment' during business decisions.
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