When FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire teetered on the brink of collapse, top lieutenant Caroline Ellison addressed a group of employees. One part of the empire, trading firm Alameda Research, had made risky bets using customer deposits from its sister crypto-exchange FTX and now the money was gone.
When an employee asked who decided to take customer funds, Ellison hesitated, then said, “Sam, I guess.”
She is set to be a star witness at Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial, which begins this week. The prosecutors have called the collapse one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history.
Ellison, 28 years old, will join two other members of his onetime inner circle—FTX co-founder Gary Wang and engineering director Nishad Singh—in taking the stand to tell the exchange’s behind-the-scenes story.
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