The big news of the day was Sam Bunkman-Fried’s refusal to plead guilty to all the charges that have been brought against him. This happened last night during a court hearing where Sam was also present. Here is the relevant video of Bunkman-Fried and representatives of his side not without difficulty trying to enter the courthouse.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried before the court hearing

The trial of the former head of the FTX crypto exchange will therefore begin on the second of October 2023. Moreover, according to experts’ preliminary estimates, the sessions will take at least four weeks, which means that the process will be quite protracted.

Analysts suggest that the Bachmann-Friede side did not make this move by accident. Most likely, the denial of his guilt will buy Sam time. After all, the trial is just under ten months away, and the prosecution expects to present evidence of the former businessman’s provisional guilt within four weeks.

Accordingly, Sam and his team will have plenty of time to prepare a defence line after reviewing the new case file.

As the blockchain community points out on Twitter, a plea bargain could, in theory, result in a harsher sentence for Bachmann-Fried. However, Sam is clearly not going to give up on the case. But exactly what strategy his lawyers will choose remains to be seen.

What’s going on with Sam Bachmann-Fried

A motion to change the trial was made by Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon. Judge Lewis Kaplan, who replaced Judge Ronnie Abrams, who had previously left the case, granted the motion. According to Decrypt sources, Bankman-Fried still did not plead guilty to eight criminal charges during the trial, although two people from his inner circle of management in Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang are already actively cooperating with the investigation.

Ex-CEO of Alameda Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang

The amendment was a reaction to the suspicious Alameda cryptocurrency wallet transactions spotted last week. As a reminder, just days after Bunkman-Fried was released on bail, some $1.7 million in crypto was transferred from the aforementioned addresses to various cryptomixers. That said, the terms of Sam’s house arrest clearly state that he cannot make transactions greater than the equivalent of a thousand dollars without prior approval.

As a reminder, Alameda Research is Bankman-Frieda's trading firm, which he founded before launching FTX. Part of the charges brought against Sam relates to customer funds being illegally transferred to Alameda to fund it as part of a loan from FTX without any restrictions. Most notably, users did not consent to the use of their assets in this way, meaning that such transactions were illegal beforehand.

Following initial rumours of suspicious transactions from Alameda wallets, Bankman-Fried posted a message on Twitter for the first time since his arrest in the Bahamas, denying his involvement in the transfers.

None of this is me. I do not and could not have transferred these funds. I no longer have access to them.

Ex-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried

This was also stated in court by one of Sam’s lawyers, Mark Cohen. In addition, Cohen noted that his client has been in constant contact with government authorities on the matter. Apparently, the new ban on Bankman-Fried is another precaution against the leakage of funds from his crypto empire.

Note that the curious details of the Bankman-Fried trial don’t end here. It has now also been revealed that Sam’s representatives have asked to redact the names of the two people who agreed to sign the FTX founder’s $250 million bail, and to do so without publicly disclosing their names. In response, Judge Lewis Kaplan granted the request.

Petition not to disclose the parties who agreed to sign the FTX founder’s bail

This means that it is unlikely that these names will be officially revealed.


Recall that the logic behind how bail works in the Sam Bachmann-Fried case is as follows: Sam received an undertaking to appear, which is essentially a promise to appear in court at the next summons, which he has already done. Four people have to vouch for Sam in this case, the first of which are Bunkman-Fried's parents. They provide potential bail, which will be taken away if Sam violates the conditions of being "out".

In other words, had Bankman-Fried not appeared at the hearing yesterday, the authorities would have moved to seize the property. In the case of Sam's parents, we're talking about a house in California, which is tentatively valued at $4 million. What bail has been posted by other people and who they are, it is not yet possible to say for sure.


Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried


We think the actions of FTX's founder are fairly predictable. Obviously, he was not planning to plead guilty, as he was also out on bail and a rather large bail. Accordingly, Sam's side was going to defend itself in advance. However, it is not at all clear what arguments Bankman-Fried's lawyers would use, given that his client's actions had previously resulted in the loss of billions of dollars to his company's clients.