Former FTX chairman and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried has received $2.2 billion in payments and loans, mostly from Alameda Research, according to On Wednesday, the new management overseeing the cryptocurrency platform announced bankruptcy.
That number may seem even more impressive when compared to the payments other executives have received, including former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, who received just $6 million.
In all, $3.2 billion was divided among the former FTX employees, according to Displays Documentation provided by the new management, most of which came from Alameda Research.
Alameda has been at the center of the FTX drama: The quantitative trading firm, also founded by Bankman-Fried, has the ability to use FTX client assets for its own means, and without oversight, according to newly appointed FTX CEO John J. Ray III.
FTX has been a huge platform for selling cryptocurrencies and digital futures. The Bahamas-based entity had 134 companies under its umbrella but went bankrupt in November.
Prosecutors allege its sudden bankruptcy was partly because its managers placed risky bets with clients’ money with Alameda Research. Sam Bankman-Fried founded Alameda in 2019, but says he’s stepping away from the business’s day-to-day operations in 2021.
Documents this week show that Bankman-Fried — better known as SBF — took the lion’s share of the $3.2 billion in payments from FTX’s new management, while the company’s former engineering director Nishad Singh received $587 million and co-founder Gary Wang received $246 million.
Former FTX Digital Markets CEO Ryan Salameh received $87 million and former Alameda Research co-CEO Sam Trabucco received $25 million, according to the statement, which did not include more than $240 million spent buying luxury real estate in the area. . Bahamas.
It should be noted that Trabuco stepped down as CEO of Alameda in August and has not been heard from since. The authorities have not yet announced charges against the former CEO, unlike the rest of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle.
SBF now faces 12 criminal charges in the United States. Some of those charges were filed last month in a dismissed indictment and include conspiracy to defraud FTX clients in connection with the purchase and sale of derivatives, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
In January Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to the charges and is now awaiting trial, scheduled for October.
Ellison, Wang, and Singh confess to the fraud and are cooperating with the investigators.
Ellison, who had an on-and-off romantic relationship with Bankman-Fried, was named co-CEO of Alameda alongside Trabucco in October 2021. After Trabucco resigned, she assumed the CEO role herself. Ellison gained notoriety after the FTX meltdown after a bizarre Tumblr blog purporting to be his appeared, revealing his strong fascination with the science of polyamory and racism.
Meanwhile, billions of dollars in cash from FTX clients are still missing, with a significant amount presumed stolen.
John J. Ray III, who is in charge of classifying bankrupt companies, said that the sudden collapse of the cryptocurrency company was caused by “a very small group of inexperienced and inexperienced individuals.”
An SBF spokesperson declined Decrypt’s request for comment.
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