Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s $35 million crypto frat home in Bahamas

Sam Bankman-Fried has traded a luxurious penthouse within the Bahamas for a decidedly totally different top-floor setting: a legal courtroom in downtown Manhattan.

He is roughly 1,100 miles away from the tropical paradise he known as residence till late final 12 months, and is going through a possible lifetime in jail if convicted for monetary crimes tied to the collapse of cryptocurrency alternate FTX, which was as soon as valued at $32 billion.

Bankman-Fried, 31, is spending a lot of his time now on the twenty sixth ground of 500 Pearl Road, one in all two federal courthouses of the Southern District of New York. He sits simply ft away from 12 jurors who will determine his destiny.

Bankman-Fried, who faces seven federal fraud fees, has pleaded not responsible.

An enormous a part of Bankman-Fried’s journey traces again to the $35 million Bahamian property he shared with 9 individuals, together with mates from highschool, an ex-girlfriend, faculty roommates and high execs at FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda Analysis.

Lots of his former bunkmates now comprise the prosecution’s star witness record. Gary Wang, the lesser-known co-founder of FTX and Alameda and a roommate on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, took the stand final week and can seem once more on Tuesday. Adam Yedidia, a senior FTX developer and in addition a roommate at MIT, testified final Wednesday and Thursday. After which there’s Caroline Ellison, who ran Alameda and had been Bankman-Fried’s girlfriend. She’s slated to look on Tuesday.

The group was cliquey, and have become much more intimate throughout the Covid outbreak, because the 20-somethings fled Hong Kong to trip out the pandemic within the Caribbean. They freely combined work with pleasure, and a few studies of their shared time collectively on the island of New Windfall chronicle sexual explorations.

In the course of the first week of Bankman-Fried’s legal trial, prosecutors have been centered on how Bankman-Fried paid for the dwelling price tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars}.

Attorneys for the U.S. Legal professional’s workplace entered into proof a collection of images that includes the penthouse condominium in a constructing dubbed the “Orchid,” the place Bankman-Fried and his fellow co-workers resided. The 11,500-square foot residence overlooks the marina and the Atlantic Ocean.

The protection tried to strike among the pictures, involved that images that includes yachts within the background is likely to be mistaken for property owned by Bankman-Fried. The request was denied by Choose Lewis Kaplan.

Yedidia, the second witness known as to the stand by the federal government, testified that Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund finally paid for his or her opulent environment.

In his testimony, Yedidia recalled a bunch Sign thread labeled “Folks of the Home,” which referred to Bankman-Fried’s $35 million penthouse. In a screenshot of a textual content alternate, admitted as proof by the federal government, Bankman-Fried stated he’d “been assuming that it is principally simply Alameda paying for it in the long run.”

A superseding indictment claims Bankman-Fried misused billions of {dollars} price of buyer cash for his private profit, together with buying greater than $200 million on upscale actual property properties within the Bahamas and making greater than $100 million in marketing campaign contributions for the 2022 midterm elections.

One other estimate by Bahamian attorneys claims Bankman-Fried and Ryan Salame, a former high FTX government, spent $256.3 million to purchase and preserve 35 totally different properties throughout New Windfall — actual property that Bahamian regulators wished to retrieve in FTX’s U.S. chapter safety proceedings.

Separate to the legal case, the chapter property of FTX has independently alleged that Bankman-Fried’s mother and father, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, “exploited their entry and affect throughout the FTX enterprise to counterpoint themselves, straight and not directly, by thousands and thousands of {dollars}.”

Attorneys representing FTX have sued Bankman-Fried’s mother and father in an try to claw again luxurious property and “thousands and thousands of {dollars} in fraudulently transferred and misappropriated funds.” The lawsuit goes on to assert that Bankman and Fried mentioned with their son the switch of a $10 million money present and a $16.4 million property within the Bahamas.

“That is actually simply quaint embezzlement,” John Ray, FTX’s new CEO who beforehand led the Enron chapter proceedings, beforehand advised lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “That is simply taking cash from clients and utilizing it in your personal function. Not subtle in any respect.”

Ray stated the corporate had “no record-keeping in anyway.”

The Orchid is extensively thought to be the crown jewel of the Albany, an oceanside resort that spans 600 acres and reportedly boasts a consortium of celeb backers, together with Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake. Its ultra-rich residents trip round in golf carts, transferring from their residence to one of many many eating places after which to the seashore or padel courts, the place they’ll play a sport that is a mixture of tennis and squash.

The penthouse had en suite bogs, walk-in closets, Venetian plaster partitions and Italian marble flooring, together with a balcony-lined perimeter with its personal non-public spa, outside pool and jacuzzi.

In his new e book, “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon,” this is how best-selling writer Michael Lewis described the outside:

“At evening its penthouse was lit purple, and the purple gentle made it appear glamorous, and elicited envy even from these accustomed to being envied.”

Lewis depicts the inside of the luxurious condominium as extra of a “flophouse” with one wall “obscured by a row of laptop screens whose cords snaked throughout the marble like jungle vines.”

A CoinDesk journalist, who visited the residence in September 2022, described the scene as a “cross between a luxurious dorm room and a jury-rigged buying and selling ground,” including that the “curved marble front room was rimmed with laptop desks, every supporting varied configurations of conjoined screens.”

Considered one of Bankman-Fried’s iconic bean baggage that he used for napping was apparently stored beneath the infant grand piano within the room that protection attorneys have in comparison with the widespread space of a dorm room.

Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s legal professional, stated in his opening assertion that his shopper was a “math nerd who did not drink or occasion.” Donning a glass of wine was tantamount to “an act of hedonism,” Lewis writes in his e book.

As for the epic views, Lewis added that Bankman-Fried and his housemates “seldom a lot as glanced” at them.

Outdoors of the Albany have been six stadium-lit padel courts. Yedidia stated it was there that he and Bankman-Fried spoke about issues he had concerning the enterprise.

In the course of the summer season of 2022, and whereas fixing a bug in FTX’s code base, Yedidia had found an $8 billion debt that Alameda apparently owed FTX.

Prosecutors requested why he was anxious concerning the price range gap.

“As a result of in the event that they spend the cash that belongs to the FTX clients, then it is not there to present the FTX clients ought to they withdraw,” Yedidia testified.

Close to the little hut on the fringe of the web, Yedidia requested his boss if issues have been OK. He was involved as a result of it “appeared like some huge cash” from FTX clients was in danger.

In June 2022, Yedidia submitted a report back to Bankman-Fried on Sign that confirmed $8 billion in buyer cash held in an inside database monitoring the money wired to an Alameda account known as “fiat at ftx.com” was lacking.

Whereas Bankman-Fried appeared “anxious or nervous,” Yedidia stated he trusted Bankman-Fried and Ellison to “deal with the scenario.”

Yedidia testified that he hadn’t talked to Bankman-Fried or seen him in particular person since November. The day earlier than FTX filed for chapter, Yedidia resigned after a fellow developer advised him that Alameda had used FTX buyer deposits to pay again collectors.