Whether you love or hate crypto, the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried in New York this week was pure drama.
The 31-year-old, who was worth as much as $20bn before his crypto exchange FTX imploded, leaving customers some $8bn out of pocket, is facing eight counts of fraud and life in prison if found guilty.
So how is the trial going for him? “So far, very badly,” said Joshua Oliver, who is covering the story for the FT, and indeed writing a book about the saga.
Bankman-Fried’s lawyers are trying to paint a picture of him as a hardworking entrepreneur who “screwed it up royally” as he tried to scale his business by making a series of honest mistakes, said Josh.
On Thursday, he took to the stand to defend himself, without the jury present, and he tried to pin some of the blame on FTX’s lawyers. But on Friday, the judge ruled that this line of defence was a non-starter.
Meanwhile, the prosecution gathered four of Bankman-Fried’s former friends and colleagues, including his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, to give their testimony over the course of the week.
“There are four insider witnesses who have gone on the stand, people who are incredibly close to Sam, including people who lived with him, and were all tied up in these business activities, are broadly telling the same story and the moral of that story is that he’s guilty,” said Josh.
“One witness, maybe you could try and take them apart, but what are you going to do with four?”
The saga could be over very soon. “We will probably hear closing arguments early next week, based on what we’ve heard from the lawyers in court,” said Josh. “The X factor is how long the jury takes to deliberate. It could all be over next week.”
Coming up next week
With the US economy buoyant, the Federal Reserve makes its latest interest rate decision on Wednesday, while the Bank of England makes its decision on Thursday.
A high-profile summit organised by the UK government starts on Monday to try to shape AI safety, and earnings season continues with Apple results due out on Thursday.
Our favourite pieces
Chris Giles has recently switched jobs from being the FT’s Economics Editor to being our Economics commentator. In short, he’s gone from reporting the news to giving us his opinion. And it turns out that after 19 years of covering the UK economy he has some very strong opinions. This week, he turned his fire on the UK’s labour statistics. Even if you don’t care about the state of UK unemployment, it’s a takedown well worth reading.
Malcolm Moore (@malcolmmoore)
Editor, FT Edit
Although I hope to always live in cities where owning cars isn’t necessary, I’m heavily invested in the success of EVs. I wasn’t alone in my excitement about Toyota’s announcement this week that it was close to being able to manufacture next-generation solid-state batteries. For all of the legitimate worries about EV range (especially in America) and safety, our Tokyo bureau chief, Kana Inagaki, reports that solid-state batteries may be the battery we’ve all been waiting for.
Caryn Wilson
US editor, FT Edit (@CarynAWilson)
Two weeks ago I was housesitting for my aunt and uncle on a Thursday evening and I had just wandered out of the front door. Moments later I get a call from my uncle — from Italy — asking where I was going. He spotted me leaving through their Ring doorbell. We sometimes worry about Big Tech collecting data on us, but as Joy Lo Dico pointed out in her column this week, it is probably your family that are spying on you the most.
David Hindley
Researcher, FT Edit (@DavidHindleyFT)
Our favourite fact of the week.
There are roughly eight chickens per person on Earth. Since World War 2, chicken has gone from a meat few could afford to eat regularly to a mainstay of western diets. From How chicken went from luxury to staple
Something to listen to
Unhedged — If you want to hear more from Josh about Sam Bankman-Fried’s time in court, listen to this episode of our markets podcast that was recorded earlier this week.
FT Weekend — It is Halloween next weekend and the FT Weekend podcast is getting into the spirit by asking what scares us.
Rachman review — You might have noticed there have been several coups in Africa this year. Gideon Rachman tells us what is causing them.
Something to watch
Former US vice-president Al Gore talks to the FT’s Moral Money summit about his view on climate change and what he thinks it will take to turn things around.
Talk to us
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