Proactive Investors - Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial has entered its third week and the disgraced former FTX boss began the week coming face-to-face with his ex-head of engineering and one-time friend, Nishad Singh.
Singh alleged he was made aware of the massive hole in finances at the failed cryptocurrency broker back in September 2022, and worked to help fix the issue, before the company imploded in November.
Hearing about the issues with FTX’s balance sheet in a meeting last year, the former executive and one of SBF’s key lieutenants said it was only then that he realised what had been going on with the group’s sister company Alameda Research.
Alameda Research, FTX’s trading company, had been using billions of dollars from user deposits to fund activities.
“I felt betrayed,” Singh told the jury.
Singh pleaded guilty to a string of fraud and conspiracy charges, but similarly to Alameda boss Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, the executives allege SBF was the key centrepiece in the whole debacle.
Claiming that he had been driven to grow FTX over his time at the company, Singh realised after his meeting with SBF that “five years of blood, sweat, and tears turned out to be for something evil.”
FTX’s former executive admitted culpability to several actions during the scandal, including making key changes to the platform code so that Alameda could obtain special privileges and staying on at the company after finding out about the situation.
Bankman Fried hasn’t been accused of campaign finance violations or federal election committee defrauding, but evidence has been arising throughout the case relating to the crime.
Singh testified a group chat had been set up for hired political consultants to advise on where was best to move funds.
Former FTX Digital Markets CEO Ryan Salame, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges last month, allegedly used Singh’s account to move funds to recipients.
Singh will likely come under cross-examination on Tuesday before several other names take to the stand, with the trial expected to move into its closing statements by the end of the first week of November.