Key Points:
- FTX co-founder Gary Wang has also cooperated with investigative agencies.
- Given the extent of Gary’s influence at FTX, he would be a more unfavorable witness for the SBF than Caroline Ellison.
- He also previously pleaded guilty to helping create the underlying code that would allow Alameda to “maintain an unlimited line of credit” on FTX and several other privileges.
Sam Bankman-Fried is still struggling to prove his “cleanliness”. However, this seems to be more difficult when the two key recipients, Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, have respectively pleaded guilty. In my opinion, Gary’s guilty plea may be more difficult to refute than Caroline Ellison to the SBF.
A recent Bloomberg article analyzed that compared to former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang is much more important to FTX. This makes him a more dangerous SBF witness.
The SBF had previously blamed Caroline Ellison for the collapse of FTX, but this defense was weakened by Gary Wang’s plea agreement.
“I think it would be hard for the SBF to claim that he didn’t know what Gary Wang was doing. It would be very effective if these two co-witnesses testified against him at the trial.”
Sarah Paul, a former US attorney in New York, said
Gary Wang and SBF have a very close relationship. Gary Wang and SBF first met at math camp in high school, and they were roommates at MIT.
They started developing FTX while sharing a home in Berkeley, California, with Gary Wang writing the code for the exchange, which launched in 2019. The two live together in Hong Kong and most recently in the Bahamas. SBF owns 90% of Alameda shares, while Gary Wang owns only 10%.
Gary served as chief executive officer of Alameda until Caroline Ellison was appointed chief executive late last year.
As alleged by the CFTC, Gary helped create the underlying code that would allow Alameda to “maintain an unlimited line of credit” on FTX, and Gary also helped create other avenues that gave Alameda an unfair advantage in trading Translating on the platform, including Fast execution time.
Legal experts say the money transfer to Alameda can hardly be explained as mismanagement rather than fraud, and that the testimony of his former colleagues could be damaging to the SBF.
In other cases, faced with such witnesses, the defendants tried to turn the tables by treating the collaborators as real bad guys who were lying to save themselves.
Earlier news on December 22, former CEO of Alameda and FTX Lianchuang pleaded guilty to criminal charges brought by US prosecutors and fraud charges brought by US CFTC respectively. The US SEC accused Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang of defrauding FTX investors and both complied with the settlement.
DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.
Join us to keep track of news: https://linktr.ee/coincu
Website: coincu.com
Foxy
CoinCu News
