Sam Bankman-Fried gagged till FTX trial start

The importance of the FTX trial that will take place in a US court this fall became clear once again after a judge banned former CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried from speaking to the media in the coming months.

Diary

In November 2022, FTX, the third largest crypto platform in the world at the time, went bankrupt and it became clear that the company’s finances were not quite what Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO, had led everyone to believe. Hundreds of thousands lost access to their accounts and a gaping billion dollar hole was all that was left of FTX. They are the reason that American politicians react quite harshly whenever someone asks them about crypto ever since. In October of this year, the long-awaited trial against SBF will finally start.

Last week, several media outlets published details of the diary that Caroline Ellison, ex-girlfriend of SBF and former CEO of Alameda, kept during 2022.

It became clear that Caroline was paid much less for her services than other acquaintances and friends of Sam and that Caroline was struggling because of her split from the founder of FTX.

🔒 Judge in SBF’s criminal case suggests a gag order, claims leaked private journals aimed to ‘influence public opinion’. U.S. authorities file complaint against Sam Bankman-Fried for alleged interference in the trial. #GagOrder #SBF #CriminalCase

— Block Savvy (@Block_Savvy) July 24, 2023

Caroline is a witness for the prosecution (she has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the FBI, SBF on the other hand has pleaded not guilty) and so it became clear shortly after publication that not she but the SBF team had passed the documents on to the media.

The judge hearing the case believes that Sam Bankman Fried’s team of lawyers are trying to manipulate public opinion before the trial and has now ordered SBF not to speak to the press until the trial begins.

Apocalypse

Another funny detail that became known is that the brother of Sam Bankman-Fried, who ran a non-profit company with customer funds from FTX, had at some point planned to buy the island of Nauru. The Bankman-Fried brothers wanted to build a bunker there in case humanity would perish in some sort of apocalypse.

FTX lobbyist tried to buy Pacific island of Nauru to create a new superspecies, lawsuit says https://t.co/tWpcXXEmxa

— CNBC (@CNBC) July 21, 2023

An official memo from the company said that the bunker could then serve for survival “in the event that between 50% and 99.99% of society were to perish”.