FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried told a jury Friday that he didn’t commit fraud and didn’t take customer funds, beginning his defense against criminal charges that he stole billions from his cryptocurrency exchange and spent the money on investments, political donations, and real estate.
Thursday, in a hearing without the jury present, the 31-year-old entrepreneur said FTX lawyers had a hand in drafting the company’s policies that he then followed. He said some FTX customer funds were routed to Alameda and housed there originally because FTX was not able to get its own bank account, although he said he wasn't exactly sure what was happening with the customer funds that were sent to his trading firm.
FTX, he said, didn’t have restrictions on what could be done with that borrowed money as long as "we believed the risk was being managed," meaning that assets exceeded liabilities.Several former colleagues have testified that Alameda had what amounted to an unlimited credit line at FTX and could carry a negative balance without being liquidated — and that Bankman-Fried was aware of all this.