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Here's the latest timeline of the FTX saga from Sam Bankman-Fried's shady balance sheet and a battle with Binance to pleading not guilty to fraud

Jan 5, 2023, 01:30 IST
Business Insider
om Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc via Getty Images
  • Sam Bankman-Fried's downfall began with a November 2 CoinDesk report on the balance sheet of his hedge fund, Alameda Research.
  • He then battled with Binance, watched two of his co-conspirators plead guilty, and then pled not guilty himself on January 3.
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In short order, crypto exchange FTX went from a $32 billion valuation to bankruptcy and its founder went from a praised wunderkind to a disgraced figure accused of massive fraud.

Sam Bankman-Fried could face up to 115 years in prison if convicted of all the charges against him. Since FTX collapsed in November, numerous reports have emerged on shady financing practices, like having customers send funds to a fake electronics retailer, and on how billions of dollars in client funds were used to prop up Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Such dealings became the subject of federal probes even before the FTX crash, while authorities and debtors search for billions in missing customer funds.

With the case set to drag on for months, if not years, here's how the saga has unfolded so far.

The FTX timeline

  • November 2: CoinDesk reports Alameda held $14.6 billion of assets, much of it in the form of the FTT token that FTX issued.
  • November 6: Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao took to Twitter to announce the sale of $530 million in FTT, triggering roughly $6 billion in FTX withdrawals in just 72 hours.
  • November 7: Bankman-Fried wrote in a now-deleted tweet: "A competitor is trying to go after us with false rumors. FTX is fine. Assets are fine. FTX has enough to cover all client holdings. We don't invest client assets (even in treasuries). We have been processing all withdrawals, and will continue to be."
  • November 8: Binance tentatively agrees to buy FTX amid "significant" liquidity issues, and some users reported difficulties pulling funds from FTX.
  • November 9: Binance backs out of the takeover deal after corporate due diligence revealed issues CZ said were beyond helping.
  • November 11: FTX files for chapter 11 bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried steps down as CEO, replaced by John Ray III. FTX officials confirm rumors of a hack on Telegram as outflows exceed $600 million.
  • November 12: Bahamas police bring in Bankman-Fried for questioning, and the authorities there open a criminal investigation.
  • November 15: In a bankruptcy filing, FTX says it could have over 1 million creditors. One week earlier, the company estimated the number of creditors at about 100,000.
  • November 16: Bankman-Fried has a direct-message exchange with a Vox journalist, where the ostensibly pro-regulation figure says regulators make everything worse.
  • November 17: New CEO John Ray III slams FTX and leadership in court filing: "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here." The filing also noted that Bankman-Fried took a personal loan of $1 billion from Alameda Research, and other execs received massive loans too.
  • November 18: Bahamas regulators confirm they are holding some of FTX's assets.
  • November 22: In a bankruptcy hearing, a lawyer for FTX said a substantial amount of assets belonging to the crypto exchange were either missing or stolen.
  • November 28: BlockFi, a crypto lender that FTX helped bail out last summer, files for bankruptcy and launches a lawsuit to get Bankman-Fried to hand over Robinhood shares.
  • December 12: US authorities announce plans to charge Bankman-Fried after the Bahamian authorities arrested him.
  • December 13: A lawsuit filed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission states that FTX execs hid $8 billion in liabilities in a customer account that Bankman-Fried referred to as "our Korean friend's account."
  • December 19: Caroline Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, and FTX cofounder Gary Wang both plead guilty to fraud. Ellison tells a judge that FTX execs secretly borrowed billions from Alameda Research.
  • December 22: After being extradited to the US, Bankman-Fried is released on $250 million bail with plans to stay at his parents' home in Palo Alto, California.
  • December 27: Court documents reveal that Bankman-Fried borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from Alameda to fund purchases of Robinhood stock, which Alameda used as collateral for a loan, CoinDesk reported.
  • January 3: Bankman-Fried pleads not guilty in the Justice Department's criminal case. His lawyers ask a judge to keep secret the identities of two people who helped secure his $250 million bail package. His trial is due to begin in October.
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