On March 28, the fraud case of SBF, the former crypto tycoon and founder of FTX, was finally pronounced. In the end, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Manhattan Court of the United States and issued a sky-high fine of US$11 billion. John Wang, a practitioner in the encryption industry and a former immutable member, watched the entire trial live and shared the entire experience on X.
I attended the SBF trial. It was one of the most exciting experiences of my life.
Seeing him sentenced to 25 years in prison today was as surreal as it was to sit behind him in court.
Let’s talk about the whole process:
In the Twitter crypto community, SBF is a larger-than-life figure. I first texted him in 2020, when FTX was just starting out, and I was a young research assistant at the time. He inspired me to join the Solana ecosystem in early 2021. Soon, Sam became the world's youngest billionaire.
But today, as he sat in the front row, all I saw was a meek, nervous, pale man—smaller than I expected.
We briefly made eye contact, then he looked away and lowered his head.
They only let 20 people in, so I arrived at 4 a.m. before dawn. The only person who came before me was a New York Times reporter who was rumored to be the leaking mouthpiece for SBF parents. He was also the only journalist I saw talking to SBF parents.
The case against former U.S. President Trump was being held in a neighboring building at the same time. Secret Service agents, steel fences and black vans drove through the area at dawn. I waited for 5 hours in the freezing New York Financial District.
The court today is much smaller than I imagined. I said hello to the SBF parents sitting on the bench next to me. Film writers, sketch artists, and journalists viewed SBF as if they were animals in a zoo. Everyone stood when the judge walked in.
SBF's attorney begged the judge to give Adderall (a neurostimulant drug considered a drug) to relieve SBF's body tremors.
"I can't have lawyers come in and feed drugs to people on trial," the judge responded, prompting laughter from reporters and angry shakes from SBF moms.
Today, a key witness testified: Nishad Singh, FTX’s third largest shareholder and former Director of Engineering at FTX. He has signed a plea agreement with the FBI. He had tears in his eyes as he walked into the stands.
"I participated in money laundering, defrauding customers and tampering with financial information to investors."
"I've always been frightened by Sam...[he] would twitch when he was angry, grind his fingers, close his eyes, grind his teeth or grind his tongue in his mouth...talking to himself that I was suicidal."
SBF's parents squinted their eyes, pursed their lips, and coughed in protest.
The jury on the scene looked like NPCs randomly selected from the street. No one looked younger than 40, half were obese, and some didn't even bring notepads. Lawyers on site must explain every encryption term. The judge laughed and said, "When I was your age, mining meant mining rocks."
It’s crazy to see a face that once graced the front pages of magazines and billboards in Times Square reduced to the butt of jokes. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows is a blue sky dotted with soft clouds. The contrast is sickening.
The jurors' heads swung back and forth between the prosecution and the witnesses like a tennis match for eight hours.
I peeked at SBF's mother's notepad and found that she was just scribbling.
Prosecutors leaked SBF diary documenting Hillary Clinton/Kendall Jenner/Katy Perry/DiCaprio/Bezos post-Super Bowl party. FTX has provided $1 billion in sponsorships (such as Stephen Curry, Kevin O'Leary and Tom Brady). $30 million penthouse in the Bahamas.
Jurors chuckled at the luxury.
I wanted to bring some luck to SBF that day - blame it on negligence, not malice. But that possibility quickly disappeared. Why?
• SBF has sole control over FTX-Alameda's funding mix. He is the only executive with a vested interest in both companies.
• Alameda secured a $65 billion credit line from FTX, resulting in a $10 billion deficit in client funds. The "allow_negative" backdoor code has been enabled since July 2019
• SBF was still spending hundreds of millions before FTX collapsed (like the $TON deal with Telegram)…wtf
• SBF deliberately inflated revenue and deceived investors by transferring SRM between entities
• SBF traveled to the Middle East with Scarammuci (Trump’s chief of staff) to raise funds after learning that FTX was in trouble
• FTX uses straw donors to make political contributions. Nishad: "You are the left cheek of [FTX]... giving a lot of woke shit"
• SBF was not involved in coding but “designed the technical and financial infrastructure for FTX”
Overall, a massive fraud that does not exist on bank accounts, employees, cash on hand, liquidity management, digital asset custody, cybersecurity practices, or any form of corporate control or governance.
I left the courtroom feeling empty, trying to reflect on the gravity of what I had just experienced.
- Cryptocurrencies are capable of very real and huge consequences. Judge Kaplan has also decided cases involving Trump, Prince Andrew/Epstein and the Al Queda terrorists. We (the crypto industry) have reached a scale where people’s life savings are at risk. It's not just about meme coins, fun and games. Normalizing negligent behavior in a “degenerate” culture is foolhardy. If we want to power a global financial system larger than the current crypto-native casinos, we cannot afford to turn a blind eye again this cycle.
- Seeing the jury’s take on the crypto industry made me realize how far we still have to go in educating and educating ordinary people. Blockchain user experience remains a joke.
- For humans, understanding the true scale of finance at scale is not intuitive. A tiny percentage error can result in accounting differences of hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Bringing business back to shore with sound regulation. In this regard, Coinbase is a pioneer in long-term thinking.
- DeFi is the answer. Build trustless systems that make accounting open, transparent, and verifiable by external parties.
