There are more and more reasons to be unhappy about the merits of Sam Bankman-Friede. In particular, last week, journalists at the New York Times shared the pattern of earnings from the FTX exchange and trading company Alameda Research, which Sam also founded.

Turns out that Bachman-Fried has been handpicking tokens to run on the FTX platform. Before doing so, Alameda’s executives were buying up serious volumes of the chosen coin for the sake of flushing it out.

FTX crypto founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrested

The crypto-asset’s exchange rate flew up after the listing, as is traditional, after which Alameda representatives liquidated the token stockpile. This, in turn, led to losses for other investors, while the scheme itself pulls in insider trading.

Where is Sam Bankman-Fried

According to a statement that Bankman-Fried’s lawyers sent to US federal judge Lewis Kaplan, a black car struck a metal fence outside Sam’s parents’ home in Palo Alto, California. Three people, whose identities remain unknown for now, then got out of the vehicle. They shouted something like “you can’t stop us” to one of the guards and then fled. The guards did not have time to record the number plate number.

Ex-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried

Lawyers did not specify the date and time when the incident took place, but they have been open about their fears about the life and health of the FTX founder.

The lawyers have also gone to great lengths to conceal information about the two people who acted as guarantors for Sam’s $250 million bail. Here is a relevant quote from the document.

Given the popularity of the case and the extreme media attention it has received, it is reasonable to assume that the guarantors, who are not Bankman-Friede’s parents, would also face significant privacy and security issues if their identities were revealed.

Recall that it was not necessary to pay $250 million or any percentage of that amount for Sam's temporary release. Instead, the sureties pledged Bankman-Fried's support and essentially pledged their own assets in exchange for Sam's adequate behaviour. If the latter failed to appear at the court hearing or circumvented the conditions of detention, then a large sum in the form of property would be confiscated immediately.

Bankman-Fried’s parents’ house in Palo Alto

According to Decrypt’s sources, the security of the 278-square-metre, $3-4 million home costs around $10,000 per week. Bankman-Fried’s parents have hired a private security firm to monitor the perimeter around the clock.

Sam’s lawyers also claim that their client’s parents constantly receive threatening letters, with some messages even promising physical reprisals. The investors who suffered from the FTX collapse are probably behind such incidents – it is they who have a clear motive to hurt the former Bancman-Friede bourse chief and his entourage.

It is worth noting that such threats could end up in serious punishment for them. Most likely, the authors of such letters are simply disappointed in what is happening and do not believe in justice, so they want to hurt Sam in some way. Recall that Bankman-Fried denies his own guilt and is preparing for a trial in October 2023. And because the former entrepreneur is not currently in prison, many in the blockchain community have wrongly assumed that he is guaranteed to get away with it. However, given the seriousness of the charges against Sam, this is very hard to believe.

Meanwhile, federal authorities in the Southern District of New York have seized assets belonging to Bunkman-Fried. Nearly $700 million is at stake, most of it in Robinhood. These Sam allegedly acquired with funds from FTX clients.

Prosecutor Damian Williams announced the seizure of the securities, which took place on 4 January. A total of almost 55.3 million Robinhood shares were seized, which are now worth about $526 million in aggregate. They belonged to Emergent Fidelity Technologies, a shell company that Bankman-Fried set up with FTX co-founder Gary Wang. It was also the shares representatives of the bankrupt company BlockFi wanted, it was revealed in late December 2022.

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Full details of the seized funds

In an affidavit back in December, Bankman-Fried said that he and Wang set up the new company using funds from a loan to Alameda Research. The money was used to buy shares in Robinhood Markets Inc. for a total of $546.4 million. In addition, there is definite evidence of misuse of stock exchange customer funds – with their help Bankman-Fried tried to stabilize the financial situation of Alameda.

In addition to the shares, $20.7 million in de jure assets held by Emergent at ED&F Man Capital Markets, Inc. and $49.9 million at Farmington Bank were seized. The latter is clearly implicated in the machinations within Sam’s “crypto empire”.

Also between 11 and 19 January, authorities seized just over $100 million of FTX funds held at Silvergate Bank. Three more accounts registered on Binance and Binance US are also listed in court documents. However, the amount of assets in these accounts has not yet been disclosed. All of this money will allegedly be used to first compensate creditors of the bankrupt exchange.


We think that such an incident is rather predictable given the scale of Sam Bunkman-Fried's "merits" and the loss of users of his platform. Apparently, Sam's inner circle had also foreseen this scenario, which is why they hired a security firm. Here we can only hope that the former entrepreneur himself will be able to wait for the trial and receive an adequate sentence.


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