The guilty verdict announced in a New York City courtroom tonight cements Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall from a billionaire crypto star to convicted fraudster.
The 31-year-old now faces decades in prison, with his sentencing hearing to take place at a later date.
Inside the courtroom, Reuters reported that “Bankman-Fried stood and clasped his hands together as the verdict was read”.
Bankman-Fried was accused of swindling FTX customers out of some $10bn. Prosecutors said that his fraud extended from 2019 to November 2022, when FTX collapsed under the weight of a liquidity crisis, caused by the lending of customer funds to Alameda Research, FTX’s sister hedge fund, without telling them.
All told, Sam Bankman-Fried was charged with:
• Wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX’s customers
• Wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Alameda’s lenders
• Conspiracy to commit securities fraud against FTX’s investors
• Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX’s customers • Conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The charges combined amount to a maximum sentence of 110 years behind bars.
The FTX founder capitalized on a rise in bitcoin and other digital assets to accumulate an estimated net worth of $26 billion and became an influential political and philanthropic donor before FTX declared bankruptcy in November 2022.
