Justice has been served ¡ª and swiftly, too.
A jury found fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy after just five hours of deliberation, markedly less time than it took for jurors to puzzle over Elizabeth Holmes¡¯ Theranos scandal or Raj Rajaratnam¡¯s insider trading at hedge fund Galleon. And while this is certainly crypto¡¯s biggest case of fraud, it undoubtedly won¡¯t be the last.
If the 31-year-old¡¯s culpability for the ¡°pyramid of deceit¡± behind FTX¡¯s collapse seemed so obvious, it¡¯s partly because he was prosecutorial gold. You didn¡¯t have to know what a blockchain was to comprehend his former lieutenants saying that the $8 billion of missing customer funds happened on his watch and with his knowledge. Nor did you have to grasp generally accepted accounting principles to see that the curly-haired wunderkind¡¯s own testimony contradicted his communications and electronic records. Bankman-Fried had no filter, though his lawyers might wish he had.
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