Crypto

That is a theme of Caroline Ellison’s remarks about Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX during his trial on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy.

That’s one of the things mentioned during the ongoing testimony of former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison against her terrible ex-boyfriend, as well as the idea SBF sought to have regulators “crack down on Binance,” the competing crypto exchange that sparked the run that took FTX down.

Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly is sporting a jailhouse haircut during his fraud trial over FTX’s failure, and observers, including this NPR reporter and CNBC, note that his ex, Caroline Ellison, needed a little time to find him in the courtroom.

Former Alameda Research CEO and ex-girlfriend of Sam Bankman-Fried Caroline Ellison has begun testifying in the fraud trial against SBF.

On the stand today during Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial, Gary Wang dove into his evolving explanation of the infamous (and now-deleted) SBF tweet saying that “FTX is fine. Assets are fine,” that he posted the day before Binance’s acquisition announcement, which is when things truly came apart.

The Verge reporter Liz Lopatto is back in a New York City courtroom today, as Sam Bankman-Fried’s friends turned cooperating witnesses continue to take the stand in the case against the fallen FTX boss.

Yuga Labs, the $4 billion outfit behind the Bored Apes and other NFT projects, announced recently “that a number of roles have been eliminated across the company,” with restructuring cutting jobs in the US and leaving international roles under evaluation.

Before they collapsed, FTX and Alameda Research “massed a roster of portfolio companies that included major names in the industry, such as stablecoin providers Circle and Paxos, blockchain developer Aptos Labs and crypto bank Anchorage Digital,” Bloomberg writes.

“If I were a juror, I would rather hear my story than either defense or prosecution,” Lewis tells Andrew Chow at Time. Also:

The government’s prosecution of Sam Bankman-Fried continues where it left off Thursday, with another former college roommate and alleged co-conspirator testifying against the former FTX CEO about exactly how all that customer money ended up being used for SBF’s other interests.

Liz Lopatto is on the ground, covering the Sam Bankman-Fried trial. But if you want even more curly-haired crypto baby in your life, our pals at New York will be reporting it out in their excellent newsletter Court Appearances.

I expect to hear a lot more about that expensive Bahamas penthouse during today’s hearings in the case of the former FTX CEO, and possibly some fireworks on the cross, as Adam Yedidia is immunized from prosecution.

The government is in the middle of a trial with Google, heading toward one with Amazon, and in general trying to change the way we think about monopolies. Also: Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial has begun, and it has already been eventful. All that, and an ebook debate, on the flagship podcast of the Sherman Act.

We don’t have a jury yet for the trial of the former crypto CEO, but we will soon. After that, it’s opening arguments and, if I’m lucky, our first witness.

The first day of the trial is over, but we haven’t selected a jury yet.

The earlybirds are here for the Sam Bankman-Fried trial. Yes, I’m one of them.

One of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s other companies, Worldcoin, is in hot water for giving people free crypto in exchange for scanning their eyeballs into the startup’s proprietary orb.

Michael Lewis, interviewed on his time with Sam Bankman-Fried, says:

Controversial stablecoin Tether is making loans to its customers. Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine walks through why that’s kind of weird:

There’s another Twitter spat going on, this time between market-makers DWF Labs, GSR and Wintermute. Worth keeping an eye on, because at least once when there was this kind of Twitter trash-talking — between FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried and Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao — FTX melted down.

This Rolling Stone article sourcing some kind of report claiming 95 percent of NFTs are worthless almost feels like the sunshine of reality peeking into the world of crypto mania.

PayPal is rolling out the ability to buy PayPal USD, its US-dollar-backed stablecoin cryptocurrency, to “select users” today, with a full rollout coming later.

The head of legal and the chief risk officer at Binance.US are leaving, The Wall Street Journal reports. The CEO of Binance.US quit earlier this week.

How involved were SBF’s powerful parents?

FTX has said its holdings are worth $3.4 billion.

Sebastian Greenwood was the co-founder of a fraudulent cryptocurrency that pulled in $4 billion from investors between 2014 and 2016. Now U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos has sentenced him to 20 years in prison, and he was ordered to pay $300 million in forfeiture.

In this entertaining excerpt from Zeke Faux’s forthcoming book, we get a glimpse of the crypto Bahamas conference before Sam Bankman-Fried’s fall. Pretty fun stuff! Seems like Michael Lewis was all-in on SBF, among other nuggets here.