It should be noted that there is not much news on the FTX cryptocurrency exchange collapse case right now. At the end of last week, it was revealed that lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell would allegedly make millions of dollars from the proceedings. Still, the firm’s staff – particularly experienced ones – charge more than $2,000 per hour, while lesser reps estimate their services at $1,500.

Sullivan & Cromwell’s legal fees per hour

Apparently, Sam himself is not sitting still. He has been active and is allegedly even contacting possible witnesses in the case.

What’s going on with Sam Bankman-Freed of FTX

Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried contacted Miller via Signal, an encrypted messaging app, on 15 January. This came a few days after the liquidators of the crypto-exchange announced the possibility of recovering more than $5 billion worth of FTX assets. Here is that very message, published by news outlet CNBC.

I’d really like to reconnect and see if we have an opportunity to build a constructive relationship, take advantage of each other’s authority when possible, or at least sort some things out.

It should be noted that Bankman-Fried is the main figure in the court proceedings, so such actions can indeed be regarded as an attempt to influence witnesses. The prosecution's initiative to limit the ex-businessman's ability to communicate is precisely why.

Messenger Signal

Bankman-Fried was also in contact with “other current and former FTX employees”. As a result, federal prosecutors argue that Bankman-Fried’s request suggests an attempt to influence the witness’s testimony. That is, under “relationship-building” Bankman-Fried is allegedly masking “tampering with the testimony” of the witness he approached. So far, neither Miller nor Bachmann-Fried have commented on the matter.

However, Sam's point of view in this situation would hardly prove curious. As experience shows, Bankman-Fried has no plans to admit his own guilt and try to help the victims of the collapse of his own cryptocurrency empire, so the same would probably happen here. To illustrate, just recall Sam's posting on the Substack platform from the first half of January, where he not only failed to repent, but even blamed Binance CEO Changpen Zhao for the situation. Allegedly if he hadn't communicated the exchange's decision to sell off all of its stock of FTT tokens, nothing would have happened to FTX. This, of course, sounds ridiculous.

Sam is trying to extend his current powers beyond anonymous reporting. His lawyers have also demanded that Bankman-Fried be allowed access to FTX funds, Coindesk reports. They cited that the former exchange executive was allegedly not involved in any suspicious transactions of the trading platform.

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Here’s a quote from lawyer Mark Cohen on the matter.

Almost three weeks have passed since the first pre-trial conference, and we assume that the investigation has confirmed what Mr Bunkman-Fried has been saying all along. Namely that he did not access or transfer these assets.

Such an assertion sounds strange. Still, it wasn't until January 19, 2023 that the US Securities and Exchange Commission officially accused Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX crypto exchange, of defrauding investors. According to them, Sam was just transferring funds from the platform's users to the trading platform Alameda's accounts without the customers' knowledge, which is a violation. At the same time, Bankman-Fried raised $1.8 billion from investors without informing them of his bizarre actions. So now the SEC is claiming that Sam did transfer other people's crypto assets to colleagues' wallets.

Ex-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried

Recall that as part of the bail conditions, Bankman-Fried was banned from having access to crypto belonging to FTX and its partner Alameda Research after prosecutors mentioned illegal transfers from Alameda wallets in the case. The ban applies to cryptocurrencies acquired with both FTX and Alameda funds.


We think Sam Bunkman-Fried could well run into stricter conditions of being "out". And while he clearly does not leave his pre-designated territory of stay, trying to reach out to witnesses in the case - especially via encrypted messengers with the option of deleting messages permanently - could be a red line for the court. Let's see how his representatives react to this.


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