Bankman-Fried revealed that FTX co-founder Gary Wang was frantically coding to assist customers, while Nishad Singh, FTX’s engineering chief, was contemplating suicide, reaching out to those who offered help. The defendant also sought financial lifelines from Binance and Apollo, to no avail.
On November 12, after declaring bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried began working with Bahamian regulators to aid in any way possible, and in December, he spoke to journalists in an effort to explain his side of the story.
Day 15 of Bankman-Fried’s Trial: The Unaware Architect of a Crisis
Bankman-Fried’s testimony underscored his focus on expanding FTX’s transaction processing capacity, ensuring accurate accounting, and preventing fraudulent transactions throughout 2022. His narrative aimed to bolster the defense’s claim of his unawareness regarding the massive sums being drained from FTX by Alameda. In mid-2022, a drop in cryptocurrency prices led Bankman-Fried to push for hedges to protect the company from further market shocks, which was met with a tearful agreement from Caroline Ellison, then-Alameda CEO. Although she offered to step down, she didn’t follow through, and Alameda added more hedge trades.
