The second week of Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) trial is now wrapped up, and industry observers are beginning to make permutations on what comes next for the embattled 31-year-old.
While Government witnesses, who doubled as his former allies have shared damning testimonies against him, the evidence being presented by the Department of Justice (DOJ) may pose an additional struggle for SBF and his lawyers to wriggle out of.
DoJ to Use SBF’s Chats and Messages as Evidence
As reported by Bloomberg, the DOJ has presented chat screenshots of messages, social media posts, and internal documents as proof that SBF deliberately orchestrated the multibillion-dollar fraud scheme that led to the downfall of FTX and Alameda Research.
For an entrepreneur with a very visible profile online, getting this evidence was not an arduous task for the DOJ. According to the Bloomberg report, the DOJ, through the obtained evidence will show how much discrepancy exists between what Sam Bankman-Fried said in public and the instructions he passed down to his co-executives and staff.
In the course of the trial, witnesses have alleged that Sam Bankman-Fried instructed them to commit a crime through the concealing of the true liabilities of Alameda Research in a bid to secure funding. This contrasts with the disposition of the trading platform in its last months as it still tried to save some other bankrupt firms like Voyager Digital and BlockFi at the time.
Notably, the $8 billion gap in FTX’s balance sheet has been known to the management team of the exchange but without any positive action to correct the wrongs.
Is the DOJ Billed for a Win?
It is worth noting that the digital currency ecosystem has been coming out victorious in high-profile cases involving US regulatory bodies. From the Ripple Labs win against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the victory bagged against the agency by Grayscale, crypto appears to have gained much empathy from federal judges.
However, Sam Bankman-Fried might hand the DOJ a historic win as the testimonies, pieces of evidence, and the highly criticized defense from his attorneys are pointing to that fact
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