SBF Testifies in Court Alameda Account Privileges Not My Concern Untidy Appearance Due to Introversion

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SBF testifies in defense before the jury
Account privilege in Alameda has nothing to do with me
Naturally introverted
Refusal to save Genesis and Celsius
Considered selling the company to Binance in the early stages
SBF appeared in court again last night to testify in his criminal trial before the jury. SBF reiterated last night that the failure of FTX was due to “operational mistakes” rather than “wrongful conduct,” admitting that many people were harmed by the closure of FTX, but he did not deceive anyone or steal customer funds.
SBF stated that he made many mistakes in operating the now bankrupt exchange, the biggest of which was not forming a dedicated risk management team. Additionally, SBF attributed some of the mistakes to his former girlfriend and former CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison. SBF stated that Caroline Ellison did not heed his advice to hedge assets, leading to the company suffering billions of dollars in losses.
Prosecutors had previously stated that the FTX exchange allowed sister company Alameda’s account balances to show negative values, enabling the withdrawal of unlimited funds from the exchange, thereby stealing customer assets. However, SBF shifted the blame to his former colleagues Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, stating that these two company executives had the autonomy to make decisions, while he mainly served as a supervisory advisory role, and this notorious system was built by these two individuals.
Regarding the prosecutor’s questioning of the FTX team automatically deleting chat content to cover up criminal evidence, SBF argued in his testimony that this was based on his experience as a quantitative trader at Jane Street. SBF explained:
“Anything you write down could end up on the front page of The New York Times. Many seemingly harmless things can look bad without context.”
On the other hand, SBF also refuted Caroline Ellison’s accusation during her testimony that his unkempt appearance was to help enhance the image of FTX. SBF stated that he chose to wear shorts and a t-shirt simply because it was more comfortable, and he kept his hair long out of laziness due to being too busy.
When asked why SBF chose to stand in the forefront as the public face of FTX, he mentioned that he is naturally introverted and had not initially intended to do so. He recalled early interviews as CEO of FTX, where his performance in those interviews garnered media attention, leading to more interview requests. Eventually, it was too late to find a new face to represent FTX.
Before the collapse of FTX in November 2022, he had played the role of a white knight in the industry, publicly stating that he would save companies in distress like BlockFi and Voyager.
However, there were several high-profile cases at the time that he chose not to assist. SBF testified that DCG CEO Barry Silbert had requested equity capital for DCG’s Genesis subsidiary during the downturn in the cryptocurrency market last year. Additionally, the lending platform Celsius Network had also requested emergency funding at the time, but he refused both requests.
SBF revealed that in the early stages of FTX, he had considered selling the company to Binance. SBF believed that FTX could become a place specialized in serving margin traders, as there were hardly any companies in the industry doing this business at the time, so he expected exchanges like Binance might be interested in acquiring FTX.
One of SBF’s classic moments was when he boasted on a social platform that he would buy all Solana’s native token SOL for $3.
However, he stated in court that he actually started buying SOL early on when the price was $0.2. When asked how he paid for this investment, he stated when questioned by his lawyer:
This testimony was an attempt by defense attorney Mark Cohen to demonstrate that his client had conducted due diligence on his investments during his operation of FTX and Alameda, but federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon opposed this testimony.