NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Sam Bankman-Fried, affirming at his scams trial Friday, cast himself as a bumbling cryptocurrency visionary who understood absolutelynothing about the market when he began FTX or about marketing when he endedupbeing the face of his business and not enough about his organizations to see they were $10 billion in the hole upuntil soon inthepast they collapsed.
In Manhattan federal court, the one-time cryptocurrency golden kid rejected defrauding anybody.
Bankman-Fried, 31, acknowledged some failures, stating he made errors, big and little, however he likewise objectedto testament by 4 previous leading executives who blamed him for the collapse of his organizations last year when a rush of clients withdrew their cash, exposing that billions of dollars were missingouton.
“We idea that we may be able to develop the finest item on the market” and relocation the crypto environment forward, he stated.
“It turned out generally the opposite of that. A lot of individuals got hurt — clients, staffmembers — and the business ended up in personalbankruptcy,” Bankman-Fried stated.
Asked by his attorney, Mark Cohen, if he defrauded anybody or took consumers’ funds, Bankman-Fried respondedto, “No I did not.”
Mostly unemotional on the witness stand, Bankman-Fried, who might face years in jail if he is foundedguilty of all charges, stated: “I wear’t tend to program a lot of freakoutness.”
As the day used on, testament focused on what tookplace as Bankman-Fried’s companies sank muchdeeper in financialobligation, even as he invested hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing that consistedof a 2022 Super Bowl business including comic Larry David, a collaboration with quarterback Tom Brady and a company that connected him to stars.
Bankman-Fried stated he was “very stunned” when he foundout in October 2022 that Alameda had an $8 billion financialobligation that he didn’t understand about, which implied the business’s overall financialobligation was approximately $10 billion.
Cohen stated he anticipated to surface questioning his customer on Monday. A districtattorney stated interrogation would last into Tuesday. The jury was notlikely to get the case till late next week at the earliest.
The California businessowner has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges implicating him of diverting billions of dollars from customers and financiers to make dangerous financialinvestments, buy high-end realestate, engage in a star-studded promotion project, and make big political and charitable contributions.
His testament endedupbeing the focalpoint of a defense that has attempted to communicate that Bankman-Fried had no criminal inten