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The exemption allowed Alameda to keep borrowing funds from FTX irrespective of the value of the collateral securing those loans. The other was a mechanism whereby FTX customers deposited over $8 billion in traditional currency into bank accounts secretly controlled by Alameda. Indeed, he told investors that Alameda received no preferential treatment from FTX, the SEC complaint said. This would allow Alameda to keep borrowing more FTX funds without the need to provide more collateral. Bankman-Fried's house of cards "began to crumble" in May 2022, the SEC complaint said.

New York CNN —FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was indicted on eight criminal charges including wire fraud and conspiracy by misusing customer funds, according to an indictment from the US Attorney of the Southern District of New York. Separately Tuesday, US markets regulators charged Bankman-Fried with defrauding investors and customers in his failed crypto exchange FTX. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Bankman-Fried, “orchestrated a years-long fraud” to conceal from FTX investors the diversion of customer funds to Alameda Research, his crypto-trading hedge fund. Star athletes and celebrities who backed FTX also reportedly received a stake in the company, including Tom Brady and Gisele. That meant there was no meaningful distinction between FTX customer funds and Alameda’s funds that Bankman-Fried used as his “personal piggy bank,” the complaint says.

☆ House Financial Services Chair Waters doesn't plan to subpoena Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at hearing on FTX collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters told Democrats she doesn't plan to subpoena former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at Tuesday's hearing about the crypto exchange's rapid demise, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation. Those at the meeting say Waters said she wants committee staff try to convince Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify, those with knowledge of the meeting said. As of late Wednesday, Bankman-Fried has yet to agree to voluntarily testify to the House committee, two of the people explained. Waters invited Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify before the panel and could always change her mind and subpoena him before Tuesday. John Jay Ray III, the new FTX CEO, is scheduled to testify at next week's House hearing.

☆ Former FTX engineer quietly became multimillion-dollar Democratic donor after new role at cryptocurrency exchange
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried wasn't the only company executive who put big money behind campaigns aligned with the Democratic Party. Singh donated $8 million to federal campaigns in the 2022 election cycle, and all of it went to Democrats, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets. He was among a handful of former senior officials at FTX who were deeply involved with financing the 2022 midterms. Two years later, Singh donated $1 million to Future Forward USA, a PAC that backed President Joe Biden's 2020 run for president, records show. Singh, who was among the FTX leaders initially fired after the company collapsed, did not return repeated requests for comment.

☆ UK charity backed by disgraced crypto kingpin Sam Bankman-Fried sounds alarm to British regulators after FTX collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Lawyers for FTX have said the company was "effectively run as a personal fiefdom of Sam Bankman-Fried." Hashim said that "Effective Ventures" is an umbrella for two charitable organizations, Effective Ventures Foundation in the U.K. and the Centre for Effective Altruism US. Alameda Research has donated grant money to the group since 2017, the same year the firm was launched by Bankman-Fried, according to the charity's U.K. financial records. The Centre For Effective Altruism has received approximately $14 million from the Future Fund, according to the fund's website. Bankman-Fried personally committed $16.5 billion from himself and FTX to effective altruism charities, according to a slide from conference about the philanthropies last year in London.

☆ Bankman-Fried's FTX, senior staff, parents bought Bahamas property worth $300 mln
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Koh Gui Qing | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

[1/5] View of the entrance to the condominium complex ONE Cable Beach, a beachfront residence in New Providence, Bahamas, November 18, 2022. The deeds show these properties, bought by a unit of FTX, were to be used as "residence for key personnel" of the company. PROPERTY PURCHASESReuters searched property records at the Bahamas Registrar General's Department for FTX, Bankman-Fried, his parents and some of the company's key executives. FTX Property Holdings Ltd, an FTX unit, bought 15 properties worth nearly $100 million in 2021 and 2022. The property records for the penthouse, dated March 17, were signed by Ryan Salame, the president of FTX Property, and showed it was intended as "residence for key personnel."

☆ EXCLUSIVE Bankman-Fried's FTX, parents bought Bahamas property worth $121 mln
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Koh Gui Qing | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

The deeds show these properties, bought by a unit of FTX, were to be used as "residence for key personnel" of the company. Reuters could not determine the source of funds that FTX and its executives used to buy these properties. PROPERTY PURCHASESReuters searched property records at the Bahamas Registrar General's Department for FTX, Bankman-Fried, his parents and some of the company's key executives. FTX Property Holdings Ltd, an FTX unit, bought 15 properties worth nearly $100 million in 2021 and 2022. The property records for the penthouse, dated March 17, were signed by Ryan Salame, the president of FTX Property, and showed it was intended as "residence for key personnel."

☆ FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried donated $40 million to political campaigns leading into the midterms, leaving some concerned about crypto's place in Washington, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Bethany Biron | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX execs donated a total of $70 million to political campaigns in 18 months, according to OpenSecrets. Bankman-Fried himself donated $40 million to mostly liberal efforts, while fellow exec Ryan Salame gave $23 million primarily to Republicans. He was the second highest donor for liberal efforts behind George Soros and the sixth highest donor overall. Meanwhile, Ryan Salame, a fellow FTX senior executive, donated more than $23 million primarily to Republican candidates and efforts. "Frankly, everyone should always be skeptical of things like this," Bankman-Fried said of political donations.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried's mom once wrote an essay about fixing problems rather than assigning blame when 'something goes terribly wrong'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-20 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sam Bankman-Fried's mother, a Stanford law professor, once wrote an article titled "Beyond Blame." Barbara Fried asked what would happen if the focus was on fixing problems and not assigning blame. Her son Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded FTX, which last week filed for bankruptcy. She has written pieces for the Boston Review, a quarterly political and literary magazine, arguing that attributing "personal blame" in times of crisis had "ruined criminal justice and economic policy," suggesting it was "time to move past blame." "The next time something goes terribly wrong, suppose that instead of immediately asking who is to blame, we were to ask: How can we fix this problem?"

☆ Bankrupt FTX Fires Three of Sam Bankman-Fried’s Top Deputies
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Justin Baer | Hannah Miao | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Sam Bankman-Fried, shown in September in Washington, resigned as FTX’s CEO on Nov. 11, when the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy. FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange launched by Sam Bankman-Fried , said it fired three of the founder’s top deputies. Gary Wang, an FTX co-founder and its chief technology officer; FTX engineering director Nishad Singh; and Caroline Ellison, who ran Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trading arm, Alameda Research, were terminated from those roles after FTX tapped John J. Ray to oversee the companies’ bankruptcy, an FTX spokeswoman said late Friday.

☆ FTX fires three of its top executives - WSJ
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nov 18 (Reuters) - Cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which recently filed for U.S. bankruptcy court protection, has fired three of its top executives, including co-founder Gary Wang, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing an FTX spokeswoman. The other fired executives were engineering director Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison, who ran FTX's trading arm Alameda Research, the newspaper said. read moreThe U.S. bankruptcy proceedings involve multiple FTX group companies with more than 100,000, and possibly over 1 million, creditors. read moreThe company had come under some regulatory oversight through the dozens of licenses it picked up via its many acquisitions. Several crypto firms have since been bracing for the fallout from the FTX collapse, with many counting their exposure in millions to the beleaguered exchange.

☆ FTX's bankruptcy filings show the situations is much worse than anyone thought. From a million creditors to a stunning lack of oversight, here are the craziest details.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Matthew Fox | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The downfall of crypto exchange FTX has led to a bankruptcy filing that is full of crazy details. From billion dollar loans to accountants in the metaverse, these are the craziest details of the FTX bankruptcy filing. In reality, according to the bankruptcy filing, FTX's crypto holdings have a fair value of just $659,000 as of September 30. FTX didn't have an accounting departmentRay said in the bankruptcy filing that FTX had compromised internal systems, faulty regulatory oversight, and inexperienced and unsophisticated people in charge of the company's finances. "In fact, there could be more than one million creditors in these Chapter 11 Cases," the bankruptcy filing said.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried says 2 top execs have left FTX, with one 'scared' and another 'ashamed and guilty'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

FTX cofounder Sam Bankman-Fried said two top executives have left the collapsed crypto exchange. CTO Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh are no longer at FTX, he told Vox. Singh was "ashamed and guilty" because FTX customers' deposits were lost, Bankman-Fried said. When asked to clarify whether they were both gone, Bankman-Fried said that Wang was "scared" and Singh was "ashamed and guilty" because FTX customers' deposits had been lost. Despite this, he lived with Bankman-Fried, Singh, and other FTX employees, CoinDesk reported.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried and a company he owns got $3.3 billion in loans from his Alameda trading firm, bankruptcy filing says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Alameda Research lent $3.3 billion to Sam Bankman-Fried and entities he controlled. FTX's bankruptcy filing disclosed a $1 billion loan directly to Bankman-Fried. The other $2.3 billion went to Paper Bird Inc., a company SBF owns a majority stake in. A loan of $1 billion went directly to Bankman-Fried, the filing said, while $2.3 billion went to Paper Bird Inc., which he owns a majority stake in. The bankruptcy filing included numerous stunning revelations about FTX.

☆ FTX may have used corporate funds to buy homes for employees and advisors, its new CEO says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-17 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Some of FTX's affiliates may have used corporate funds to buy homes, its new CEO has claimed. "In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors," Ray wrote. Bankman-Fried and other FTX employees including CTO Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh all lived together in a penthouse in the Bahamas. He said that employees submitted payment requests through an on-line chat platform "where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis." In the declaration, Ray also cited FTX's "inexperienced" execs, auto-deleting messages, and "a complete failure of corporate controls."

- Ray said he had secured $740 million in cryptocurrency, a "fraction" of what he hopes to recover during the bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried and his co-founders failed to identify wallets that might contain FTX assets, he added. - Record keeping was so lax that Ray said he was unable to compile a complete list of FTX employees. - The second silo is Alameda Research LLC, which Ray described as a crypto hedge fund owned by Bankman-Fried and Wang with assets of $13.46 billion. - The other silos were Ventures, which manages private investments and had around $2 billion in assets, and Dotcom, which owned non-U.S. exchanges with $2.25 billion in assets.

☆ Special Report: FTX's Bankman-Fried begged for a rescue even as he revealed huge holes in firm's books
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-16 | by ( Angus Berwick Anirban Sen Elizabeth Howcroft Lawrence Delevingne | Angus Berwick | Anirban Sen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +22 min

Sequoia was shocked at the amount of money Bankman-Fried needed to save FTX, according to the sources, while Apollo first asked for more information, only to later decline. The booklet flagged the risks of crypto trading, particularly how sudden sales of tokens could trigger a "domino effect" that would lead to a "cascading set of liquidity failures." Using profits from Alameda, Bankman-Fried launched FTX in 2019. From almost nothing in 2019, FTX handled about 10% of global crypto trading this year, a September document shows. At one point, he lived in a penthouse overlooking the Caribbean, valued at almost $40 million, according to two people who worked with FTX.

☆ Alameda, FTX executives knew crypto exchange was using customer funds - WSJ
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Nov 12 (Reuters) - FTX-affiliated crypto trading firm Alameda Research's Chief Executive Officer Caroline Ellison and senior FTX officials knew that the crypto exchange had lent Alameda its customer funds to help meet liabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Reuters reported Friday that FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried had secretly transferred $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to Alameda. Ellison told employees in a video meeting on Wednesday that she, Bankman-Fried, and two other executives, Nishad Singh and Gary Wang were aware of the decision to move customer funds to Alameda, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. FTX filed for U.S. bankruptcy protection early Friday and Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive. FTX and Alameda Research did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

☆ FTX's crypto empire was reportedly run by a bunch of roommates in the Bahamas who dated each other, according to the news site that helped trigger the company's sudden collapse
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-11 | by ( Lakshmi Varanasi | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

On Thursday, CoinDesk unearthed more secrets about the inner workings of Bankman-Fried's crypto empire, including the untraditional makeup of his inner circle. Those sources told CoinDesk that both operations were run by Bankman-Fried's inner circle of 10 roommates. Among the named members of Bankman-Fried's inner circle were Caroline Ellison, Alameda's current CEO. Some employees outside Bankman-Fried's inner circle noted that they were shocked by the events of the past week. "Some employees kept their life savings on FTX," an anonymous source told CoinDesk.

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