By Luc Cohen
In US prosecutors’ telling, Sam Bankman-Fried embezzled money from depositors in his FTX cryptocurrency exchange ever since he launched it in 2019, and the resulting shortfall led directly to its collapse as crypto prices swooned last year.
But in his own version and in explanations put forth by his lawyers, Bankman-Fried thought FTX, like a bank, could make investments with customers’ money as long as they were able to withdraw it – and he did not know that actions taken by his closest colleagues had jeopardized the availability of funds.
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