Day 11 of FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s Trial: Key Takeaways

The landmark trial involving FTX’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, continues to gain momentum as it reaches its 11th day. Today’s session shed light on various investments and loans carried out with FTX’s customer funds.

The prosecution summoned several witnesses to provide testimonies, with a significant one being Professor Peter Easton, affiliated with the University of Notre Dame’s Accountancy department. Easton was brought in by the litigation support company, Brattle, to scrutinize the financial records of FTX and Alameda Research.

Key Insights from Professor Peter D. Easton’s Testimony:

A revealed balance sheet illustrated the flow of funds from FTX to Alameda Research.
The data displayed transfers to 47 separate Alameda accounts from FTX’s customer funds.
Bankman-Fried’s various investments made through FTX customer funds included allocations to Skybridge Capital, spearheaded by Anthony Scaramucci, and a $100 million investment in Dave Inc. via an Alameda initiative.
Transactions further revealed Nishad Singh utilizing $1 million from client funds for political contributions to the committee MTG (Mind The Gap). Moreover, Singh received an extensive sum of $96 million, earmarked for property-related expenditures and investments.
A massive $1 billion from FTX’s customer reserves was deployed to repurchase shares from the exchange Binance.
Multiple entities, including Celsius, Maple, Abra, Anchorage, Bitgo, and TrueFi, received loans from FTX, all sourced from client funds.
Notably, basketball icon Shaquille O’Neal purchased Binance’s stake in FTX.
A conversation with Business Insider’s finance reporter, Frank Chaparro, had Bankman-Fried asserting, “he would stop lobbying.”
The court was also shown a text message from Bankman-Fried where he was critical of regulators.

In addition to Professor Easton, the prosecution also summoned Cory Gaddis from Google to testify. Gaddis’ testimony was succinct, confirming that multiple email accounts linked to various domain names were associated with Sam Bankman-Fried.