35 Burst results for "Danielle"
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from CARPE CONSENSUS: Moving on From Sam Bankman-Fried
"This is Carpe Consensus. Join hosts Ben Shiller and Danny Nelson as they seize the world of crypto. Hello and welcome to Carpe Consensus. This is a podcast from the CoinDesk Podcast Network. I am Benjamin Shiller, Features Editor here at CoinDesk. And joining me today is Danny Nelson. He is the co -host. And also Helene Braun. She is a reporter here at CoinDesk. And we're going to be talking about the SBF trial, which just wrapped up last week with the former founder of FTX being found guilty on seven counts of federal fraud and related charges. And that was a pretty big deal for the crypto industry and certainly here for CoinDesk as we broke the story originally. So Danny, what was it like to be there at the end of the trial there with the verdict? Yeah, I got to say it was unexpectedly emotional, right? So for five weeks, we heard all these co -conspirators, these insiders who pled guilty to various crimes, testifying against Sam saying he made me do this, he told me to do that. Caroline, Nishad and Gary all coming with their very powerful stories. And then at the end, Sam testified and then he was bad for him. I know, weird thing to say. I don't feel like he is innocent or I don't think he's not guilty rather. He's definitely guilty. He's guilty as hell. But watching him in the courtroom, watching his parents there, I just felt like this sense of, wow, I felt the gravity of the moment. And I don't know, we should lock him up, but we shouldn't give him 115 years. This is a hot take, I know. Maybe we can get into the rights and wrongs of how long he's going to get. Helene, what about you? How did you feel when you saw the verdict being read out? Yeah, I did not feel bad for him at all, especially after we heard all the closing statements. We heard two different closing statements from Assistant US Attorney, Danielle Cezune, and they were very compelling and very convincing. And I felt like there was this moment in her closing argument where I looked at Sam and it just felt like he finally realized that this was it for him. There was no going back. His defense was just not good enough. And I think the jurors knew too. And at that point I was just like, I hope he gets 150 years or 200 years. I don't feel bad for this guy. All the evidence that we've heard was just crazy to me. So no, I totally disagree with Danny. I think he deserves to be in prison for the entirety of his life. Right. So you mentioned the defense there. I mean, there seemed to be a consensus amongst lawyers that we spoke to about the trial and the defense that he didn't get a very good service on that score. I mean, how much of a difference do you think that actually made? I mean, it seems like a structural set of circumstances where he would get a guilty verdict anyway, and most people expected him to go to jail. But do you think if he had a better defense, he could have gotten a better sentence or a better verdict? Yeah, I think it's interesting because in the beginning of the trial, it sort of felt like the defense wasn't trying very hard. And I think it must be so funny if you're Mark Cohen, the defense attorney that Sam was represented by, to read all these articles about you and bad of a lawyer you are and how bad of the defense strategy you have from all these, you know, journalists that have nothing to do with the law and are attorneys themselves, and they're just judging your work, basically. But I think in his closing statements, I could see that he was trying really hard and that I think he was he had hope for his defense. I don't know. He's supposed to be good. I don't know. I was wondering that, too, if is he supposed to be a really good lawyer or is he just the guy that all the bad guys go to? He's the only one who is willing to defend them. From what I've heard, I think Mark Cohen is a fine lawyer, but that's the name of the game when you're a defense attorney. Your clients, especially the more outspoken ones like Sam Pink and Fried, you're not going to win all your cases. And if you have a really bad deck, well, that's the deck you have to play with. And he went to trial with this guy who had so much evidence against him. I think it was very insurmountable. So, sure, maybe he wasn't as quick on his feet with some of the strategic and tactical things in the courtroom, like objections and phrasing of questions and things like that. But if you have all these people testifying against your client, and then when your client takes a stand, you can't get him to sound the way that an innocent person would sound. And also, you have to remember, before the trial even began, the trial would go. The judge wouldn't allow the defense to bring in all of Sam's philosophical arguments. They wouldn't allow him to bring defensive counsel arguments. He went to trial with a losing hand, and it's not completely his fault that the trial ended up going against his client. Right. I mean, I have to say I agree with you, Danny, about feeling a little bit sorry for SBF. I mean, both things can be true. On the one hand, you can say this guy was a fraud, he was a criminal, he took a lot of people's money, and he spent it lavishly and irresponsibly. On the other hand, he is a human being. To get this huge sentence, he could go away for 115 years at maximum, seems like a rather excessive amount of time. And there is an argument out there that he is very much the fall guy for the industry, and the guy who's kind of taking the rap for a lot of cultural problems in the industry and a kind of lax, general corporate governance culture out there. I mean, there were VC funds that put millions of dollars, billions of dollars into FTX without doing any due diligence. And that's not a criminal act, but it was an act of cultural indifference or negligence that you could say contributed to this enormous folly. So, you know, I think there's a reasonable argument to say that he is taking the rap for the entire industry when maybe he doesn't quite deserve that kind of level of status here. What do you think about that, Danny? I don't know. I think it's a special kind of stupid to set up a company in the way he did. And sure, there's a lot of follies that crypto in general has committed, but just the arrangement between Alameda and FTX, and that's this whole case, right? That Alameda spent all this money from XTS customers. That is so unique, right? That doesn't even have to do with crypto. The way that this fraud was committed was mostly because people were wiring their money into Alameda Research to get it into FTX. So there was also the allow negative code and the let's borrow $65 billion code that was more crypto native, but I don't know. And, you know, look at me, I'm contradicting myself again, right? Because earlier in the episode, I'm saying, well, I feel bad for Sam and here I'm saying, well, he's guilty as hell. I don't know. I think there's room for both statements because it's very hard to watch someone's parents in the room when a guilty verdict is handed out. Like they're older, right? He's going to be locked up probably for the rest of their lives. I don't know. I just, I can't get over that scene in the courtroom. I did feel guilty. I'm sorry. I did feel bad for him. Did you steal the money? I did feel bad for him up until his testimony, because up until that point, all these people that he used to be friends with that were all part of the scheme to like, he wasn't just the only one that committed this fraud. All these other people, Caroline, Nashad, Gary, they're all part of this. And they all were put up on the sand as the good guys, so to say, just because they cooperated with the government and they told their side of the story. But his then testimony just showed that he is not remorseful at all. He still is trying to lie to people. He's still trying to talk himself out of this. And at that point, I was just like, it's too late for this. You're already in this trial. You're on the stand. It's time to look back and be a little bit remorseful and stop thinking that you're smarter than everybody else. I mean, do you think it would have made a difference if he was remorseful? Well, if he was remorseful, he wouldn't be convicted even faster. Yeah, except because he can't really be remorseful because in his opinion, he's not guilty. Right? So what's he going to say to the jury? He could say something like, I'm sorry, the people got hurt and I made mistakes and something like that. Well, he did say that. That was the very first thing he said, basically. And then after that, everything was basically, I don't remember. He decided to say it because he had to. Helene, among the witnesses that flipped on Sam, who's the biggest villain? Like you sat through that whole thing too. Who do you walk away feeling the least bad for and who do you feel the most bad for? I feel like there are easy answers here. I feel the least bad for Caroline just because literally just because of that tape that we heard from that meeting in November where she told her employees that it was kind of fun to, you know, steal money. She obviously didn't explicitly say it like that, but she said it was fun. She sounded a little crazy in that recording. So after her testimony, after hearing that recording, I thought, wow, she's definitely not the innocent little girl that everybody says she is. She certainly knew what she was doing. And she certainly, you know, she's certainly guilty as well. So I feel the least bad for her. The person that I felt really, really bad for wasn't a shot. Okay. But I also don't know if that's just because he's very soft spoken. He has a very low voice. He seems like a very sweet guy. So it could just be a front that he put on for his testimony. I have the opposite answers, actually, like a complete opposite. I feel like Caroline from reading the Michael Lewis book, which is sympathetic to Sam, but also some of the things that were said about Caroline were repeated by the government in their narrative. Caroline just comes off to me as someone who was completely, I guess the word I would use is submissive in every aspect of this business and personal relationship. And I don't feel bad for her at all, but I feel the least bad for her, even though she did big fraud. I think that Nishad, though, is next level evil. He presents himself, like you say, as this guy who is soft spoken. Oh, by the way, after he learned that the companies were stealing money from customers, he took out $3 million to personally buy a house. This wasn't like in furtherance of the scheme to keep it all afloat. This was so he could have a house, like personal enrichment. So I think it's all just a front. And Gary, I don't know how to read him. I think he just doesn't talk much. And he took the deal as soon as his lawyer said, we should make moves here. Do we know what the deals are with those collaborators who turned on SPF? I mean, will they be getting any jail time? We don't know that aspect of it. I would imagine that Gary will get the best deal because he offered himself up to the government before the government was even investigating. Caroline, she didn't speak until they raided her house. So you get negative points for that. And I don't know about Nishad, but I would expect Gary to get the best deal. Gary said he hopes that he doesn't get any jail time, though. And I think that could actually be the case, because we see in a lot of these white cases that those people or the witnesses that cooperate with the government actually get zero jail time. So I think that's a possibility, which would be crazy to me. Yeah, we'll probably get years of probation. So if they would violate the deal, then they would go right to jail. But I think Caroline might get some time. I don't know about Nishad, and I would expect Gary to get no jail time. Could we even see them back in the crypto industry? I highly doubt that that seems exceptionally unlikely. I think they want nothing to do with this. In fact, in other cases, the government, like for securities fraud, so some of them have some of them pled guilty to securities fraud. When you plead guilty to securities fraud, the government often makes you say, I will never work in the securities industry again. That probably means they shouldn't work in any of crypto, because most cryptos are securities. Bitcoin's not a security. Well, Bitcoin's not a security, too, and neither is Ether. But a lot of the other ones probably are. So if I were them, I would steer clear. I don't know. I think they've had their fair share of the crypto industry, and I don't think anybody needs to see them back in the industry. I think Adam Yedidia, who was one of the first witnesses, who was a senior software engineer at FTX, I think, or Alameda, he is a high school teacher now. Yeah, he's a math teacher. He seemed a little traumatized by this whole experience. Well, maybe in a few years' time, we can do a sort of where are they now article.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from A 20+ Year Sentence? Why the Evidence Against SBF Was Too Hard to Overcome
"Thanks for listening to Unchained, your no -hype resource for all things crypto, on the Coindesk Podcast Network. You can also listen to the episodes on the Unchained feed earlier if you subscribe there. Plus check out all our content on our website, unchainedcrypto .com. One of the reasons why CROSS is done live, why witnesses appear in court, is demeanor, so that the jury can evaluate their demeanor. And you saw a stark contrast between the CROSS and the direct in two respects. One, on the direct, when Bankman Fried was going to cast blame on somebody else, or contextualize himself as a good actor, or as somebody who had good intentions, he had command of very specific details, sometimes from conversations many years ago. But all of a sudden, when he's being confronted by Danielle Sassoon, in a setting where he is in danger, in jeopardy, and being forced, confronted with things that hurt his argument, hurt his case, suddenly he doesn't recall. And he didn't recall a lot. And jurors know, you know, it is common lore that I don't recall is the liar's answer.
Unchained
A highlight from A 20+ Year Sentence? Why the Evidence Against SBF Was Too Hard to Overcome - Ep. 566
"Oh, right. Yeah. Cause at that point, it's too late for the government to rebut that. Although, no, I guess Danielle's has seen could have, I don't remember if she did in a moment, we're going to talk about the verdict and how swiftly it was dispatched. But first a quick word from the sponsors who make this show possible. The game has changed. The Google cloud Oracle built for layer zero is now securing every layer zero message by default. Their custom end to end solution sets itself up to bring its world -class security to web three and establish itself as the HTTPS within layer zero messaging. Visit layer zero .network to learn more. Popcorn just made DeFi way easier with Volcraft, your no -code DeFi toolkit for building, deploying and monetizing automated yield strategies in a few clicks. Forget spending months of R and D capital and human resources when you can now instantly launch your crypto fund with Volcraft on any EBM chain from wallets and institutional service providers to non and DeFi. Degen's Volcraft supercharges your crypto assets by enabling instant cross chain yield strategies that you can deploy in one minute. Now anyone can supercharge their crypto portfolios with custom tailored DeFi strategies. You can now partner with popcorn to launch and list your strategies on the popcorn DAP and earn kickbacks. Learn more on vaultcraft .io. Join over 80 million people using crypto .com, one of the easiest places to buy, trade and spend over 250 cryptocurrencies with the crypto .com visa card. You can spend your crypto anywhere and get rewarded at every step up to 5 % cash back instantly plus 100 % rebates for your Netflix and Spotify subscriptions and zero annual fees. New users enjoy zero credit card fees on crypto purchases in their first seven days. Download the crypto .com app and get $25 with the code, Laura. Link in the description. Back to my conversation with Sam and Rich.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL Podcast 11/03: Reaction From Outside the Courthouse
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. Sam Bankman -Fried is guilty. Twelve jurors spent less than five hours deciding the facts, and yet they quickly decided that Bankman -Fried was guilty on all seven counts. He defrauded FTX's customers and conspired to defraud them. He defrauded Alameda Research's lenders and conspired to defraud them. He conspired to defraud FTX's investors and customers and to conceal the proceeds by laundering funds. The outcome seemed inevitable. The U .S. Department of Justice had a fully fleshed out case, while the defense, as we've said for weeks, seemed to struggle. Judge Lewis Kaplan visibly appeared to lose his patience with the defendant, though he said Thursday he wouldn't share any personal views on the verdict. I wasn't personally in the courtroom when Bankman -Fried testified, nor when defense attorney Mark Cohen gave his closing. But my colleagues who were there say that some of the jurors looked at the and I say inability in the sense that if he acknowledged some of AUSA Danielle Sassoon's questions, he'd open himself to follow -ups, and if he denied them, he'd open himself to claims of lying. His particular speaking style, trying to answer the question he hoped he'd be asked, sparked admonitions from the judge. The case isn't over. A sentencing hearing has been tentatively scheduled for next March, and Bankman -Fried faces another trial on additional charges around the same time. And, as the court prepared to disperse Thursday, defense attorney Cohen asked about post -trial motions. We'll almost certainly see an appeal, but as I said, this outcome seemed inevitable. The judge decided to keep the jury around until 8 p .m., instead of ending the day at 4 .30 p .m., as usual. The court clerk announced a verdict was reached at 7 .38. Everyone was in the courtroom for the verdict. The overflow room was closed, so we all watched the jurors file in. We saw the court clerk show the judge the verdict form, hand the foreperson, Juror 4, a microphone, ask her for the verdict on each count and poll each juror to confirm the decision was unanimous. Sam, the defendant, Bankman -Fried, whatever you want to call him, had to watch her read out the decision. She didn't look at him while reading the verdict. By 7 .55, it was all over. After she sat down, you could just hear the court sketch artist for a second. Judge Kaplan thanked the jurors for their service, telling them being on a jury is a privilege of citizenship. And then, after dismissing the 12 women and men, the judge returned to business, asking about sentencing hearings and a second trial on additional charges set for March. We're on to the next one. I want to take a moment to just contemplate something. Sam Bankman -Fried was found guilty of serious financial crimes. He left thousands of victims, some of whom are still hoping for anything back that they can get back. He's looking at potentially decades behind bars. Based on the testimony and evidence we've heard and seen over the past month, he was an active and willing participant in the crimes he was convicted of, and his role as a truthful person who made mistakes is suspect. All that being said, it is worth acknowledging that what this means is he's going to spend a decade or a few decades isolated from society at large. If he's released early or after the conclusion of his sentence, he'll be dropped into a world different from the one he left. A decade ago, Bitcoin was worth pennies on the dollar compared to today, and this entire industry I spend my time covering barely existed. Smartphones were relatively infant. People used massive desktop computers instead of tablets, and there were around a billion fewer people on this planet. I'm not saying people should feel sorry for Bankman -Fried or sympathetic toward his immediate future, but it's still worth acknowledging. And finally, a note about this newsletter and podcast. Danny, Sam, Helene, Liz, and I have a month's worth of notes and quirks that didn't quite fit into the normal everyday coverage. Over the next few days or weeks, we'll start sharing those. So stay tuned. Want to follow along? Sign up for CoinDesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the CoinDesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
Unchained
A highlight from SBF Trial, Day 18: Sam Bankman-Fried Found Guilty on All 7 Counts in Swift Verdict
"Thanks for tuning in to the Unchained Recap for Day 18 of the criminal trial of Sam Bankman -Fried. On Thursday night, after less than five hours of deliberation, a Manhattan jury found Sam Bankman -Fried guilty on all seven criminal charges in a unanimous decision. He potentially faces decades in prison, with a max sentence of 115 years, for multiple counts of wire fraud, multiple counts of conspiracy to commit fraud, and money laundering. Bankman -Fried will be sentenced on March 28, 2024. His attorney, Mark Cohen, said in a statement, "…we respect the jury's decision, but we are very disappointed with the result. Mr. Bankman -Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him." After the verdict, U .S. prosecutors, including Nicholas Rose and Danielle Sassoon, lined up in front of 500 Pearl Street for a post -trial conference. In front of them, Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, gave a statement, "…Sam Bankman -Fried perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history, a multibillion -dollar scheme designed to make him the king of crypto. Here's the thing. The cryptocurrency industry might be new. Players like Sam Bankman -Fried might be new. But this kind of fraud, this kind of corruption, is as old as time, and we have no patience for it." At about 7 .35 p .m., the prosecution team swiftly walked back into courtroom 26A, which was already filled with journalists, crypto degenerates, family members of U .S. prosecutors, influencers, among many others. Shortly after, it was announced that the jury had reached a verdict. Many in the crowd audibly gasped. That's because some longtime court -watchers had surmised earlier in the day that it was highly unlikely that the jury would reach the verdict within that day. Barbara Fried, Bankman -Fried's mother, leaned her head on the shoulder of SPF's father, Joe Bankman. Bankman -Fried himself was then led into the courtroom. At 7 .43 p .m., Williams walked in and sat in the pew behind SPF. It was silent as the courtroom waited for the jury members to walk in. At 7 .43 p .m., Williams walked in and sat in the first pew, which was directly behind SPF. It was silent as the courtroom waited for the jury members to walk in. After they had been seated, Judge Kaplan asked Bankman -Fried, who was wearing a dark gray suit with a purple tie, to stand and face the jurors. Jury member number four, the foreperson, who was wearing glasses, also stood as she read the verdict out loud. Bankman -Fried stood motionless. In his pew, the defendant's father, Joe Bankman, bowed forward at the waist, his face in his hands, for a couple of minutes, while Barbara Fried covered her eyes one moment and her ears the next. At one time, both were seen holding hands in an attempt to comfort and support each other after jury members found their son guilty. After the jury filed out, SPF's parents stood in the first pew behind Bankman -Fried, who was conferring with his lawyers. He did not turn to look at them. Then, just as he was about to leave the courtroom, he looked back at his parents and gave a slight nod and smile. Barbara Fried slammed her hand into her chest near her heart. The verdict was delivered on November 2, 2023, one year to the day after CoinDesk leaked Alameda Research's balance sheet, showing that the assets of the supposedly legendary trading shop were heavily reliant on FTX's own token. It was a swift and stunning downfall for a man who his ex -girlfriend and Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison said had ambitions to be President of the United States. But in the end, his ill -advised media tour made the prosecutor's jobs easy, and in ended after falsed on the stand. As prosecutor Danielle Sassoon said Thursday morning in the government's rebuttal to the defense's closing argument, quote, the defendant has no obligation to testify. He has a constitutional right not to. But if he takes the stand, it's your duty to scrutinize what he said, to consider whether it matched up with the evidence and the testimony. It didn't. Thanks for tuning in to all our trial updates. Keep watching Unchained for more analysis and news on the trial. Plus, for those of you who haven't heard, my next book deal is about FTX. While the publication date is not yet set and probably won't happen for a couple years, if you take interest in the story, follow me on all my channels or sign up for the Unchained newsletter for further updates. Thanks again.
Crypto Critics' Corner
A highlight from Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial is Going Great (feat. Molly White)
"Welcome back everyone, I am Cass Pianci. I'm joined as usual by my partner in crime. How are you today, Bennett? I'm doing well. How are you, Cass? I'm hanging in there. It's a little early for me today, so if I look tired, it's because I am. But we're joined by a super duper special guest today. I believe this is her third time joining us, Molly White. How are you? It's so good to have you back on. I'm doing well. I'm really excited to be back. Awesome. Well, we're having you on because you've been going to the trial for Sam Bankman -Fried repeatedly over the course of the past week or so. Like the rest of the journalists that we've had on, we were hoping to discuss what you've seen and how you felt about it and what the pulse of the courtroom has been. We get to discuss with you the very final Sam Bankman -Fried cross -examination and time on the witness stand. So why don't we just jump in? Yeah, like the last day of testimony for Sam Bankman -Fried, how did it go for Sam? What was the tone in the courtroom? It didn't go great. I will say, you know, I have sort of a habit of covering things that are going just great. And I would say the Sam Bankman -Fried testimony is going just great. He took the witness stand. He first did his direct questioning with his defense team, which went okay. And then he did cross -examination with the Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, which did not go well. And then there was an opportunity after that point to have his defense ask a couple more questions. And, you know, he's clearly a lot more comfortable when he's talking to his own defense team, which is understandable. I mean, like that absolutely makes sense. But he is very uncomfortable and evasive when talking to the cross -examiner. And it, I think, does not come over like it doesn't come across well. I heard Sam Bankman -Fried's memory was a little bit less than stellar, too, once he was in kind of this high pressure situation. Well, his memory was fine when he was talking to his defense attorney. I observed, you know, he was recounting events from when he was like an intern at Jane Street, which would have been almost 10 years ago at this point. You know, they were asking him about what he was and was not trained on when he was at Jane Street. And I don't know about you, but like corporate training is not the most memorable thing, in my opinion. And so but he's talking about, yeah, you know, we were, you know, it was really important according to the Jane Street folks that you don't ever do any front running and all this kind of stuff. And so he's telling his defense attorney about this. And then as soon as he starts talking to the cross -examiner, it's like his memory just goes blank. And he's like, well, I don't know, you know, and he's talking about events that are significantly more recent. They were, you know, within the last year or two. And they're events that were very important. You know, it's like his company is, he thinks his company might collapse or he's trying to, you know, have a conversation with someone to get funding or whatever. And suddenly it's like, he can't remember it, even though you would think that might be a very memorable moment. You actually brought up there's, I think the line was, and how do you define market manipulation? And he said at Jane Street, it was a bad trade, which I, I've never heard that definition of market manipulation before. And they had to like stop the courtroom for a second to clarify that this was Sam Bankman Freed's definition of market manipulation. And if at any point the jury needs like the more legal definition, that is not what they should be considering and that the judge will provide that. And this has happened several times at this point, actually, where like Sam Bankman Freed will say something that's like legal adjacent. I can't remember what the other thing was, but there was one other thing that this happened with too. And the judge was like, just so we're clear, this is not the legal definition of this term that actually has a specific meaning. This is Sam Bankman Freed's special interpretation of it. Like why is Sam able to answer these questions from the defense team so readily? Obviously, I think everyone's aware, like you're going to be able to answer the defense questions a little bit easier than the prosecution questions. Understandable. But I want to I want to just dissect that a bit, right? Like why were the questions for the defense from the defense team so much in what ways were they so much easier than the prosecution's questions? Why was he unable to answer the questions appropriately from the prosecution side? The questions from the defense attorney to Sam Bankman Freed have an entirely different purpose than the questions from the cross examiner. They are like, imagine the most softball interview you could ever have. They're just teeing him up for these answers about how he was so busy and he was working so hard and he had so much going on. Boy, he really regrets that he didn't pay more attention to what was happening. You know, and it's very much this opportunity for him to tell the good story and craft the narrative to what extent there is one about what happened. And so, you know, they're very friendly questions and he's had the opportunity to rehearse them with his defense team for, you know, months at this point, honestly, because he meets with them most days and has been doing so for a long time. He meets with them when he's not throwing a temper tantrum in the jail and just refusing to come to the meeting room. Yes, except for those moments. But like, you know, every day, I think both maybe before and after court, he has the opportunity to meet with them and then they're meeting on weekends. They've been prepping for months, you know, before this trial. So this is all very rehearsed and it honestly comes off that way sometimes. You know, I think he's doing his best to seem natural when he's answering these questions, but there are portions of it where, like, you can tell he's practiced the answer. But like, that's kind of expected, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. Whereas with the cross examiner, these are questions that are intended to nail him. You know, they are trying to catch him in a lie or admit to something that is, you know, related to the case. They have all of this evidence to corroborate their questions. So they, you know, they're asking him questions that they already know the answer to, but they know that he doesn't want to answer them because if he does, he could, you know, implicate himself in some of this wrongdoing. And so he's sitting there trying to not answer their questions while also knowing full well that they're going to say, like, do you recall saying this blah, blah, blah? And then when he says no, he doesn't recall, they're immediately going to pull up evidence that he said that very specific thing. There's no winning when you're talking to the cross examiner. Like, you're not going to answer the question in a way that they're like, oh, you know what? That actually makes sense. Like, they know the answers and they're trying to nail you down. And so it's a very different vibe. I'm starting to think a 45 day media tour before your arrest can make it more challenging to have an effective criminal defense. You know, it's starting to look that way.
Unchained
A highlight from SBF Trial, Day 17: Closing Arguments Ask: Villain or Good-Faith Actor?
"The paperback version of my book, The Cryptopians, is out now. It contains a new afterword covering recent developments in crypto since 2021, when the book went to press. Plus, this version names the person I suspect to be the DAO hacker. In case you never got to read the book in hardback, or, like me, you like to read paperbacks or bedtime reading, order today. Check our newsletter and the show notes for the link. Or just search for it at any of your favorite bookstores. It's The Cryptopians—idealism, greed, lies, and the making of the first big cryptocurrency craze. Thanks for reading. Hi everyone, thanks for tuning in to Day 17 of the Unchained Recap of the ASBF trial. On Wednesday, the government and the defense made starkly contrasting closing arguments in the criminal trial of former FTX CEO Sam Pinkman -Fried. Assistant U .S. attorney Nicholas Rose used new evidence, timelines, and the defendant's own words to paint a picture of SPF as a liar who stole and whose secretive actions belied his public statements, which Rose asserted was an indication of his guilt. Defense attorney Mark Cohen focused more attention on discrediting the government and the cooperating witnesses, while emphasizing the high bar that must be reached for the jury to convict on each of the charges. In a decidedly less frenzied courthouse compared to the crowds that had appeared for Bankman -Fried's when it was dark. Deliberations are set to begin Thursday. Rose, who was tall and has a robust voice and a slightly patrician way of speaking, began his closing statement using clear, simple language. As he walked back and forth in front of the lectern, he faced the jury directly, with his voice ringing out loud and clear. At times he was impassioned, almost yelling some of his points in indignation. His main theme was lies, and SPF's knowledge that he was doing something he should not have been doing. A few minutes in, Rose said, quote, This is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency. It's not about hedging. It's not about technical jargon. It's about deception. It's about lies. It's about stealing. It's about greed. After reminding the jury that the main question is whether SPF knew it was wrong to take the money, he said, quote, And the answer is clear. He took the money. He knew it was wrong. He did it anyway. Because he thought he was smarter and better and that he could figure his way out of it. He could walk his way out of it and talk his way out of it. And today, with you, that ends. He asked the jury to apply their common sense and look at the evidence. Rose then called out the contrast between SPF's direct testimony on Friday, which he called, quote, And showed Bankman Fried to have a perfect memory of his college years, Jane Street, and the early years of Alameda. At that time, Rose said, he was also able to explain 50 finance and technical terms. Then Rose noted that Bankman Fried became a different person under questioning by prosecutor Danielle Sassoon. Rose said, quote, But it happened over 140 times during his cross -examination. He lied about big things and he lied about little things. He asked for terms to be defined that he used freely on direct examination a day earlier. He approached every question like up was down and down was up. Rose then said that in order to believe SPF, a juror would have to ignore all the other evidence, such as the testimony of all his deputies, the flow of money, and the documents and secret spreadsheets. Quote, You would have to believe that the defendant, who graduated from MIT, who ran two billion dollar companies, and who was testifying before Congress, was actually clueless and he had no idea what was happening at his own company and he had no idea what he was doing wrong.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from CARPE CONSENSUS: SBF's Testimony Demonstrated He Was (at the Very Least) a Bad CEO
"This is Carpe Consensus. Join hosts Ben Shiller and Danny Nelson as they seize the world of crypto. Hello and welcome to Carpe Consensus. This is the best podcast about crypto in the world and Carpe Consensus is a podcast from the CoinDesk Podcast Network. And my name is Benjamin Shiller. I am the features and opinion editor here at CoinDesk. And joining me today is the unerring presence, Danny Nelson. Danny, how are you doing today? You know, Ben, first off, it feels great as always to be the best crypto podcast in the world and by default, therefore also the best crypto podcast in the CoinDesk Podcast Network. But I've been better, quite honestly. I have, we're recording this on Tuesday, October 31st, very spooktacular episode. And I have been up both days this week, 1am, actually 12 .20am, to get to the trial of Sam Bankman -Fried. God, you really are pushing the boundaries here. Have you gotten any sleep over the last few weeks, Danny? Yes. Well, the last, the trial has become, the last few days, a race to the bottom among the press corps where we just undercut each other just to see who is, I guess, the toughest as to who gets to court first and therefore gets the best seats possible. And on Monday, it was essential to get there early. So I got, I think, three hours of sleep so I could get to court at 1am, stake my claim, get my seat. Oh my God. 1am for... Yes. When were they opening the doors? The first doors open at 7 .45, usually. So I was outside in the rain. It was raining from 1am to 7 .45. And it's worth noting that our dear former colleague Sage De Young was the first one in line. He got there on Sunday at 10 .40 at night, pm at night. So he was just sitting out there all night long. I joined him three hours into his endeavor and I did it again today on Tuesday and it was terrible. So does everyone who wants to get in need to be in line or can you save a space for somebody? Well, we've actually constructed a system, us journalists. We've, the SBF press corps, we're getting smarter as the weeks go on. We devised a list system rather early on. When you get there, the first person to get through the day becomes, let's say the line dictator for the day. They create a list and everyone who arrives after that signs into the list. We usually go up to around 25 or 30, but you want to be in the first 21 because there are 21 seats available for the general population in the courtroom. And because the journalists are always the first ones, because we're the craziest, everyone, including just onlookers, comes to us to sign into the list. Well, so dear listeners, we are discussing the trial of Sam Bankman -Free, the fallen crypto king and founder of FTX, which was once valued at an incredible 32 billion dollars. His trial is currently taking place in lower Manhattan and is wrapping up this week, we think. So today, Tuesday, SBF has been on the stand. He's been testifying in his own defense and you've been down at the courthouse, as you say. What did you make of SBF today? Do you think he did anything to persuade the judge and the jury of his innocence on these multiple fraud charges? So it's I would say not. He was finishing up his cross -examination today and it was a brutal one. The federal prosecutor, Danielle Sassoon, she really puts him in a corner, made him not admit to, but reveal a lot of inconsistent statements. She places highlighted in his testimony where he may have been lying and did a pretty good number on whatever defense Sam had attempted to mount in his direct testimony when he took the stand. Now, it's never a good idea to take the stand in your own criminal trial. What the reason why Sam may have done it was simply because the trial was going so poorly for him. He had nothing left to lose. Right. I like the bit in the testimony which I was reading from Coindesk reporting, of course, where Danielle Sassoon asked SBF whether he'd ever asked his lieutenants at FTX what had happened to the $8 billion that went missing from FTX's exchange. I shouldn't laugh about it because it was $8 billion of somebody else's money. But that was quite an eye -opening moment when he said he couldn't really recall ever instructing his or asking his lieutenants where this money had gone. Yes. One of the things that is definitely clear and that no one is refuting, and perhaps even the defense is relying on, is the fact that Sam was a bad CEO. Right. If you steal money from your company, you're a bad CEO, probably also criminal. If you just don't really give people direct instructions, don't ask questions and don't look into things, well, then you're a bad CEO. You probably may also be criminal, but he's definitely a bad one. Right. So we should explain to listeners. I mean, a key question in this case is about intentionality, not whether this money went missing, but, you know, whether SBF knew what was going on and he can be held accountable for the fraud charges that he's had levied against him. So do you think he's managed to tread a line here between coming across as the kind of hapless, incompetent CEO that he needs to present himself as and also a credible witness? That's quite a hard balancing act to strike, isn't it? It was incredible how little he remembered. He was saying, I do not recall, and many variations of that phrase so often, dozens of times from the witness box, when he testified on cross -examination, he just couldn't remember a lot of the statements, whether it be to journalists or to Congress, any time that Sam seemed to have an opportunity to not remember something, he took it. Now, that might be because he just was a busy guy. He really was. He was working 20 hour days pretty often, I think, and just doesn't remember things. It might also be because it's a classic defense tactic to basically say, I do not recall when faced with testimony that is disadvantageous to you. Right. I mean, the do not recall line has become infamous from a famous hearing in Congress in the 80s with the Iran -Contra controversy with Oliver North, where he repeatedly said, I do not recall, you know, basic facts, even his name, maybe. You're right. That's a familiar defense tactic. But do you think it will actually help SBF? Do you think his decision to take the stand in his own defense will ultimately be seen as a good one or not? Well, I'm certainly appreciative of it because it's added a whole new dimension and a whole new chapter to his court dates. I don't know if it's going to make a difference. When I look at the jury box, because I'm getting to court so early each day because I want to be in the room itself, not in one of those overflow rooms. When I'm looking at the jury box and the jurors, I'm seeing a lot of bored faces, but I'm seeing a couple of people who definitely look like they're ready to convict him. It's hard to explain how I'm so sure of it. It's just the way people react to certain cues, whether that's smiling and shaking your head after hearing about something really stupid. That occurred, you know, it doesn't mean that you're definitely going to vote to convict, but it probably does. Some of these people are not good at playing poker. Others are, right? So while I can be pretty sure at this point that the jury is not going to vote to acquit him, the question remains, is this going to be a hung jury? Are they going to vote to convict on all accounts, on some accounts? What happens next? Right. So just take us forward in that. I mean, say there is a majority in favor of convicting him. What happens next? Then it's up to the judge, presumably to decide on sentencing.
The Breakdown
A highlight from SEC Is Reprimanded by Government Accountability Office (And It Could Lead to Lawsuits)
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, November 1st, and today we are talking about the SEC being reprimanded by another government body. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends. Well, as I mentioned earlier this week, I am heading off later today actually for around five days. So the breakdown will be taking basically its first break ever. And so what I'm going to try to do today is get through as many of the big stories that are floating around as possible. The most important one I think in many ways is this reprimand of the SEC by the Government Accountability Office. But before we get to that, let's wrap up our coverage of SPF's testimony. Sam's cross -examination finished up on Tuesday with U .S. Assistant Attorney Danielle Sassoon getting specific about what Sam knew as FTX came crashing down. The questioning for the day began with an inquiry into Sam's cozy relationship with regulators and government officials in the Bahamas. Sam continually denied knowledge of the details. This included him initially claiming to not remember inviting the Prime Minister of the Bahamas to a private dinner with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair during an FTX conference. This struck most observers as a very bizarre thing to claim to forget. And as Carly Riley from overpriced JPEGs put it, that was a classic Sam moment that just embodies the way he answers everything where you're pulling teeth. Even for things that are benign, you can just admit that you invited the Prime Minister to dinner. Now, eventually, Sam admitted that there had been, quote, something like a dinner with them and Sam quibbling over whether or not there had been food. Sam was asked whether he offered to pay off the Bahamas' national debt of around $11 .6 billion, which he also couldn't remember. The upshot of this line of questioning was that Sam admitted that after FTX collapsed, he had offered to allow Bahamian residents to withdraw their funds in preference to other customers. Sam's defense had addressed this point at length earlier in their case, presenting a witness who testified that Bahamian regulators had compelled some of Sam's actions after the bankruptcy. Moving on, Sassoon asked Sam what he knew about customer funds being spent by Alameda via their subsidiary, North Dimension. She pinned Sam down to acknowledge clearly that, by either September or October of 2022, he was aware that customer funds had been used for venture investments and expenses. He carefully avoided using the wording that customer funds had been spent. Sam claimed that he thought this had been permissible, but he didn't think it had been happening prior to September. He admitted that this use of customer funds for investments was not disclosed. Sassoon confirmed with Sam that he had been CEO of Alameda when North Dimension had been set up for the purposes of receiving customer deposits. Sam claimed he didn't recall giving directions to Alameda employees to hold that money for the benefit of FTX customers, nor segregate the deposits from other Alameda funds. Springing her trap, Sassoon confirmed that at the same time that he knew that no protections were in place, Sam had made representations before Congress about the safeguarding of customers' assets. Now, establishing Sam's frame of mind when he claims to have discovered that there was an $8 billion hole in Alameda's balance sheet, Sassoon asked, You didn't call in your deputies and employees and say, who spent $8 billion? Sam said that he had only asked Carolyn Ellison, then CEO of Alameda, how it had happened. He also confirmed that no one was fired for spending $8 billion of customer funds. Moving back to June of 2022, Sassoon asked Sam about what he did after he discovered the bug in the accounting system, which he claims had caused Alameda's liabilities to be overstated by $8 billion in the fiat AT account. Sam testified that he was told by FTX engineering executives Gary Wong and Nishad Singh that, quote, they were busy and I should stop asking questions because it was distracting. Sassoon confirmed that his, quote, supervisees told you to stop asking questions. Sam had testified that he briefly believed that Alameda could be on the verge of bankruptcy and that he had canceled a flight to Washington to deal with the problem. Sam was asked whether he remembered Adam Yedidiah telling him after the bug was fixed that Alameda still owed $8 billion. After Sam evaded answering the question numerous times, the judge snapped, demanding that Sam put an answer on the record. Sam said he didn't remember being told on that day, but that he was eventually told. Sassoon circled back to testimony Sam had given on Monday, where he claimed that certain Alameda payments could be characterized as margin trades, specifically repaying loans to external lenders. Sam acknowledged that billions of dollars worth of venture investments in mining firm Genesis Digital Assets, K5 Partners, and Anthropic AI were not margin trades on FTX. Sam confirmed that he had directed most of these large -dollar investments made by Alameda. Sassoon used this information to discuss the state of the Alameda balance sheet in July after lenders had begun recalling their loans. She noted that the balance sheet included all of these illiquid investments as long -term assets. The prosecution pulled up a tweet which said that Alameda had quote, "...returned most of our loans by now. Sam was forced to admit that it did not correctly state most of our third -party loans." Winding up her cross -examination, Sassoon sought to establish that Sam had conspired with Caroline, Gary, and Nishad to commit wire fraud and money laundering. She played a segment of the audio recording of Caroline's final all -hands meeting at Alameda one more time for the jury. In that clip, Caroline was pressed by an employee to answer who knew about the use of customer funds. The employee said, "...I'm sure this wasn't just a YOLO thing, right?" Caroline responded, "...I guess I talked about it with Sam, Nishad, and Gary." After numerous objections, Sassoon finally landed on a question about the conspiracy that she was allowed to ask. She questioned whether Caroline, Gary, and Nishad were the ones involved in the decisions to spend FTX customer money by Alameda. Sam said no initially, but acknowledged that each of the co -conspirators had pled guilty and cooperated with the government. To close out, Sassoon presented a document written by Sam in late December 2022 after he had been arrested and released on bail. The document was a list of things Sam was mulling over as he stewed in his parents' home. It included a substantial section on Nishad, who had not yet been charged by the DOJ. Sam noted that the complaints filed against Caroline and Gary had referred to three co -conspirators leaving Nishad out of the picture. Sam wrote, Sassoon left this document as her lasting impression for the jury. The document implied that Sam was well aware of the key participants in the crimes alleged. Afterwards, the defense led Sam through redirect questioning. Sam claimed that because his companies were private, he believed their disclosure requirements to customers were limited. Other than transparency disclosing liquidation orders, Sam said, The answer seemed to avoid the main issue of whether FTX had a duty to disclose its financial peril to customers. Sam was able to give his long and complete explanation of how repaying lenders could be considered a margin trade. His explanation was that quote, Sam also addressed his poor recollection of events. He said that he had conducted over 50 interviews in the wake of the FTX collapse and couldn't recall every single statement he made to a journalist during that period. Still, maybe the most telling statement from Sam came when he was asked why he had testified that he had not spent the $8 billion in customer funds. He responded, Good lord, the word salad. We'll come back to that point in just a moment. Anyways, with Sam's testimony over, the defense rested their case. The prosecution declined to present a rebuttal case, so the evidence in the trial was over. Lawyers held a charging conference with the judge to finalize the substance of jury instructions. The party settled how the law surrounding the seven charges of fraud and money laundering will be explained to the jury before they begin their deliberations. In a promising sign for the prosecution, the judge ruled that he would instruct the jury to find Sam guilty of defrauding customers if they believed that he had misrepresented FTX rather than strictly if he had misappropriated funds. The defense had asked for the jury to be instructed that British law governs the FTX terms of service. The judge quickly cut down that argument, noting that, Today, both parties are expected to deliver their closing arguments, followed by jury instructions from the judge. The jury could have the case in their hands for deliberation as soon as tomorrow morning. And of course, if Sam is found guilty, he likely won't be sentenced for several months once a hearing can be scheduled. I want to turn it over again to Carly Riley, the host of Overpriced JPEGs, to give the sum up. First, on the prosecutor, Daniel Sassoon, she wrote, Now on Sam's performance, she wrote, I think that served him well because he seemed a little bit more likable, at least. But ultimately, she summed up, And in what I think is the most telling statement and reflects what I was saying yesterday, in my argument that Sam ultimately just never viewed any asset or any company that he was associated with as anything other than one big pool for him to do whatever he wanted Carly said, The drama, man.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL Podcast 11/01: Sam Bankman-Frieds Final Day of Testimony
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. More than 60 people lined up to watch Sam Bankman -Fried's fourth day of testimony, filling the single overflow room to the point extra chairs were set against the walls for some of the audience members. After all that, Tuesday was a much quieter day than Monday. Bankman -Fried seems to have worked a bit on his responses, providing slightly tighter answers than he had on Monday when responding to Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon. Still, he maintained roughly the same tone he had earlier in the week, giving the impression that he did not want to be there. His problems resurfaced Tuesday with the second question when Sassoon asked if he had hoped he could regain control of FTX immediately after it filed for bankruptcy, the once high -flying crypto exchange he founded that collapsed nearly a year ago. Bankman -Fried said regaining control wasn't a priority, leading to both Sassoon and the judge pointing out that wasn't the question. However, when his own defense attorney, Mark Cohen, took over for a redirect examination, Bankman -Fried visibly relaxed. He was smiling when responding to Cohen's questions, made a joke at one point about how a photo of him sleeping on a private jet wasn't the most flattering, and laughed at his attorney's jokes. It was a pretty stark contrast. Cohen, as he has been doing, tried to contextualize some of Bankman -Fried's responses to Sassoon in an effort to provide alternative, more innocuous explanations for some of the problems that she brought up. There were two major gaps here. One was the fact that Bankman -Fried still hasn't addressed some of the more bewildering back and forths from Monday. And on Tuesday, Sassoon asked Bankman -Fried if he asked his lieutenants any questions about the $8 billion hole in the books of his Alameda Research hedge fund after he learned about it. Just to be clear, it's your testimony that while you were Alameda's CEO, your employees were spending millions and then billions of customer funds without you knowing it? As with some of his responses on Monday, Bankman -Fried didn't really have a coherent response. After lunch, the defense rested, prosecutors decided against bringing a rebuttal case, and the court began its transition to phase three of the FTX Founders trial. Now there was room to spare. The courtroom looked empty. The overflow room had maybe a dozen people. The presentation of evidence is completed. The Department of Justice and the jury on Wednesday. But first, we had a jury charge conference. Judge Lewis Kaplan had a draft set of jury instructions, which he'll read out to the people who will try to decide if Bankman -Fried committed wire fraud or conspired to commit various other kinds of fraud. Attorneys with the DOJ and defense debated specific verbiage and precedents. The judge won't read the jury instructions out until Thursday at the earliest. Both the parties are closing arguments, and the DOJ will have another rebuttal, which should take under an hour. Though the court day is technically seven hours long, almost two hours of that usually go toward breaks and lunch. So it's an open question whether everyone will finish their presentations Wednesday. Accounting for that, it seems likely the jury won't begin deliberating the case until Thursday afternoon at the earliest. The parties are contemplating whether or not to ask the jury to show up Friday, right now scheduled as a day off from the trial. But it seems like we'll instead break until Monday after court wraps up tomorrow. This means that the six -week estimate for the trial may have been remarkably accurate. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
Unchained
A highlight from SBF Trial, Day 16: In Final Cross Examination, SBF Gets Caught Again by His Own Words
"The paperback version of my book, The Cryptopians, is out now. It contains a new afterword covering recent developments in crypto since 2021, when the book went to press. Plus, this version names the person I suspect to be the DAO hacker. In case you never got to read the book in hardback, or, like me, you like to read paperbacks or bedtime reading, order today. Check our newsletter and the show notes for the link, or just search for it at any of your favorite bookstores. It's The Cryptopians — idealism, greed, lies, and the making of the first big cryptocurrency craze. Thanks for reading. Hey everyone, Laura here. Welcome to the Unchained Recap for Day 16 of the SBF trial. Thanks for tuning in. The government wrapped up its cross -examination of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman -Fried on Tuesday with Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon shooting more rapid -fire strings of questions at SBF that underscored the incredulity of some of his claims, plus a mic -dropping set of final questions that seemed to indicate the defendant's knowledge of his guilt. In her cross -examination, Sassoon interrogated the defendant's relationship with Bahamian officials, his efforts to determine who would have spent the $8 billion of missing FTX customer funds, his concern — or lack thereof — about the fiat ad account, and his infamous Nov. 7 tweets telling customers' assets were fine, which he deleted the next day. The defense followed with a redirect examination aimed at recreating reasonable doubt that the 31 -year -old former FTX and Alameda research CEO did not defraud or conspire to defraud customers, investors, and lenders. It used the time to give Bankman -Fried space to further expound on his answers in the cross -examination Monday. The prosecution started its cross -examination by asking Bankman -Fried about whether he cultivated a close relationship with Bahamian officials. For instance, she asked whether SBF recalled proposing to the Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis that FTX pay off the country's national debt of roughly $11 .6 billion. SBF said, quote, I don't remember that. Sassoon also asked SBF about having a conversation with Davis' son about a job in NFTs and giving Davis and his wife, quote, floor -side seats at FTX Arena to see the Miami Heat. She brought up a screenshot of a Signal group chat named Project Chinchilla Chatter, where SBF had joked that former co -CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ryan Salem was a member of the Bahamas government. She also mentioned a private dinner and played a video from the Crypto Bahamas conference. Davis was in attendance at both, alongside guests like former US President Bill Clinton, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, singer Katy Perry, and actor Orlando Bloom. Then she pulled up an email from November 9, 2022, between the defendant and Bahamas Attorney General Ryan Pinder. By that point, FTX had halted withdrawals. And yet, in the email, Bankman Fried wrote to Pinder, quote, we have segregated funds for all Bahamian customers on FTX, and we would be more than happy to open up withdrawals for all Bahamian customers on FTX. Bankman Fried admitted that FTX was reopened temporarily solely for Bahamian customers. When Sassoon asked him about what she called Alameda spending the FTX customer fiat deposits from the North Dimension bank account owned by Alameda, Bankman Fried said he did not learn until September -October 2022 that FTX customer fiat deposits in the North Dimension account had been, quote, used. Under the quick questioning from Sassoon, SBF admitted that it was, quote, permissible for Alameda to borrow and use fiat deposits, and yet that he didn't tell his employees not to spend FTX customer deposits, didn't set up measures to segregate FTX customer funds from Alameda's funds, didn't tell Alameda employees to keep FTX customer money in the North Dimension bank account for the benefit of FTX customers, and yet made representations before Congress about the safeguarding of FTX customer assets. Bankman Fried claimed that in September -October 2022, he learned that $8 billion of customer money had been spent. When Sassoon asked him what information he learned about who had spent it, he said, quote, I don't remember knowing anything about particular employees. She rejoined her, so it's your testimony that while you were CEO of Alameda, by the way, I think she meant FTX, some unknown people spent $8 billion without your knowledge? Then she asked him, you didn't call in your deputies and employees and say who spent $8 billion? He said he asked Ellison how it happened. Sassoon asked whether he had fired anyone for spending $8 billion of FTX customer deposits. He responded, no. She responded, and so, just to be clear, it's your testimony that while you were Alameda CEO, your employees were spending millions and then billions of customer funds without you knowing it? SPF denied that it was his testimony. During the defense's redirect, Cohen asked Bankman Fried why he had denied to Sassoon that he had spent the $8 billion. SPF first stated how he didn't think, quote, there was a clear, simple pointer decision where a particular person or group decided to spend the money. Moreover, he, quote, wasn't particularly interested in trying to dole out blame for it. That wasn't my priority. It was generally something I deprioritized as later, and I tried to focus as much as I could on what stuff has happened, what's the best thing we can do going forward. Similar to the earlier line of questioning about whether or not Bankman Fried had tried to identify who had spent $8 billion of FTX customer money, Sassoon showed multiple times that SPF's actions don't quite match his story. For instance, he described simply overhearing about the fiat ad account from FTX co -founder Gary Wang and director of engineering Nishad Singh just after Ellison had feared that Alameda might have gone bankrupt. Earlier, he had testified that at this point, SPF learned that Alameda's liabilities to FTX were $10 billion, not $2 billion as he thought. In this section of the transcript, Danielle Sassoon says, and you didn't say, hey guys, what's this fiat ad account that had an $8 billion bug that almost made Alameda bankrupt? SPF replied, when I heard it, I didn't have all that context, but I did ask what the fiat ad account that was an account was referring to. Question, and you were told, weren't you, that it had to do with Alameda's liabilities to FTX for customer funds, right? Answer, not at that time. I was told they were busy and I should stop asking questions because it was distracting. Sassoon asked, so it's your testimony that your supervisees told you to stop asking questions? In the overflow room, people laughed. Sassoon aimed at Bankman -Fried's credibility, highlighting tweets that, from the government's point of view, demonstrated how the defendant misrepresented FTX's financial status to customers. She focused on several tweets SPF posted on November 7, which were deleted the day after, once it became known that FTX did not have the full amount of assets to process customer withdrawals. Bankman -Fried said that before FTX went bankrupt, but as customers were rapidly withdrawing from the exchange, he was writing tweets because, among other things, he wanted to reassure customers and have them leave their funds on the exchange instead of withdrawing. Referring to the statement in the November 7th tweet, quote, FTX has enough to cover all client holdings, Sassoon said, quote, your tweet doesn't say that Alameda has enough to cover all client holdings, does it? He agreed. She reminded him that in previous testimony, he said that when he wrote this tweet, he was referring to the fact that Alameda had more in assets than liabilities. He said he wouldn't put it that way, but then she asked, quote, on November 7th, FTX itself, if you disregarded Alameda's assets, did not have enough to cover all client holdings. He disagreed. Bankman -Fried admitted that even if he and Alameda had liquidated its assets, for example, by either selling their investments in Robinhood and recalling their money from Modulo, the amount was still less than needed to cover FTX's obligation to its customers. And Sassoon asked him if these assets were investments. He said yes. Then she said, quote, you tweeted, didn't you, that we don't invest client assets? He said, that is correct. For the final line of questioning for the cross -examination, Sassoon created a mic drop moment that indicates SPF knew who the four co -conspirators were even before all four were publicly known. Sassoon began by asking, quote, Mr. Bankman -Fried, you would agree that you, Caroline, Gary, and Nashan were the ones involved in the decisions to spend FTX customer money by Alameda, right? He said no. Then she asked if he had learned in December that Caroline and Gary had pleaded guilty. He said yes. When asked if he knew that they were both cooperating with the government, he said he wasn't sure, but, quote, I may have. Then she pointed out that in January, he would have learned that Singh had also pleaded guilty. He said January or February. She asked if, in December, when he'd heard about the guilty pleas of Caroline and Gary, he'd been surprised not to learn anything about Nashad. He agreed. She responded, because Nashad was the fourth person involved in your scheme to use FTX customer money, right? He said nope. She pulled up the same Google doc written on December 25, 2022, in which, in Monday's testimony, Sassoon had shown he'd been wondering if he could get the Robin Hood shares transferred to himself. However, this time, she focused on a different section of the document, labeled Nashad. Question, do you see it says Nashad? Answer, I do. Question, and A says, quote, lots of the complaints, et cetera, filed at this point make claims like the three co -conspirators in a way that doesn't really seem to leave much room for them adding on a fourth. They don't seem to be keeping a seat warm for him as a defendant. Do you see that? Answer, I do see that. Question, B, also there's no plea deal, no nothing, yet. Do you see that? Answer, I do see that. And quote, C, what does this mean? One, he got immunity. Two, they aren't bothering with him. Three, they'll just have a separate parallel set of complaints for him once they get past whatever the blocker is. Four, something else? You wrote that Mr. Bankman -Friede, correct? Answer, I think so. After the defense's redirect, the judge and both teams of lawyers had a charging conference to revise the jury's instructions. On Wednesday, the defense and prosecution will give their closing statements, then the jury deliberates. The end is in sight. We'll see you next time.
The Breakdown
A highlight from SBF Gets Absolutely Buried in Cross-Examination
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, October 31st. Happy Halloween. Today, we are talking about Sam Bankman -Fried on cross -examination. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello everyone. First, let me say before we get into more SPF, a big happy 15th birthday to the Bitcoin whitepaper. Crazy to think that that was 15 years ago, a decade and a half of Bitcoin. Here is to many, many more. All right, well, we are firmly down in the muck with SPF and if yesterday's show was all about Friday's prepared testimony and direct examination, and specifically how Sam contradicted the previous testimony of Caroline, Gary, and Nishad, Monday's testimony and today's show is all about the cross -examination. Just to level set a little bit for how that went, here's how Laura Shin described it. Hey everyone. We just got out of the courthouse and I think it's pretty fair to say that at this moment it just feels like it's over for Sam Pinkman -Fried. Honestly, if before lunch it felt like we were witnessing a murder, then afterward we were witnessing somebody just stab a dead body over and over and over and over and over again. Basically, Danielle Sassoon again trotted out multiple statements that Sam Pinkman -Fried made and multiple statements where he contradicted those statements, you know, was often evasive. She just caught him in so many things. Alright, so let's dig into this. Technically yesterday began with the end of the direct examination. There were a few things covered. One was this hedging defense that somehow everything would have been fine if Caroline Ellison had just hedged, like Sam told her to. SPF said that he had numerous conversations about hedging with the then CEO of Alameda, saying that he had directed Caroline to hedge once in late June or early July, and then following up throughout September. Sam told the court that Alameda's net asset value had already fallen from $40 billion to $10 billion, and that he was, quote, worried that Alameda might become insolvent. Sam discussed Caroline's teary -eyed response, where she agreed that Alameda should have hedged and that maybe they shouldn't have had so many venture investments. He said that she had offered to step down as CEO, but that he wasn't trying to push her out, and that his, quote, biggest concern was that if Alameda remained unhedged that it might go bankrupt. And so I thought that the focus should be on urgently putting on the hedges that would protect against that. Sam explained that Alameda had put on hedges in September, but they weren't as large as he would have wanted. Thus, he directed Caroline to increase the hedges. I will take a pause here and note two things. First of all, on the one hand, Sam has tried to testify that he didn't know what was going on at Alameda and didn't have any control. And yet here, he's talking about how many times he has directed the CEO to take a very specific action. It kind of feels like one of those you can't have it both ways and either you were the de facto CEO or you weren't kind of situations. Second, and something that I'm sure will come up with the jury, hedging in Alameda's performance doesn't have any real bearing on whether or not Sam committed fraud by knowingly using FTX customer funds for his hedge fund slash financial playground. It is a distraction and really has more to do with what might have happened if we had never found out. Now, speaking of what Sam did or didn't know, he also tried to suggest that he didn't really have any idea what was going on until October. He claimed that in October 2022, he had been given direct access to the FTX database, which was previously only accessible by developers. He said that he used this access to build a full view of Alameda's accounts. During that investigation, Sam claims that he learned about the hidden accounts including Se -Yoon 88, which has been sometimes referred to as our Korean friend during reporting. That account was used to wall off Alameda's liabilities to FTX in an account that didn't accrue interest. Now again, this contradicts everything that we've heard from every other witness, but alas, that's what Sam testified. The defense moved on to the final week of FTX, beginning with the release of the Alameda balance sheet in a Coindesk article. Sam acknowledged that he discussed Caroline sending a tweet which would refute the claims. That tweet said, quote, Now again, another revealing part of this testimony, and remember, this is direct examination. This is Sam being questioned by his own lawyers. Is Sam seeming to think that any entity that he was connected to could just move assets freely back and forth between them? He's literally explaining here that a holding company, a shell corporation created entirely to hold Sam's equity in FTX, counted as an asset for Alameda. While Sam seems to think that that's a good defense, to me, it kind of just makes the point clear that he never saw any barriers or differentiation between any project that he was the head of, or any entity that he had ownership over. In other words, if Sam thought he could just move assets from the shell company Paperbird onto the Alameda balance sheet to shore it up to external eyes, is the jury really supposed to believe that he wouldn't do the same thing with FTX customer deposits? Now when it comes to the final days and hours of FTX, Sam basically reinforced over and over that he believed that they had enough resources to take care of everything and that it was all CZ's fault for triggering a loss of confidence and, as he wanted to characterize it, a run on the bank. He also tried to sow doubt when it came to Nishad Singh, as Sam recalled Nishad messaging him about trading his personal account to clear his debts. There were over $500 million in loans for investments and donations that had been papered in Nishad's name, along with $80 million for personal expenditure. Sam said that Nishad was quote, actively suicidal at the time and was being overseen by a therapist. The two of them discussed Sam taking the blame, with Nishad concerned that FTX employees would think it was all his fault. Sam wrote, At this stage, the testimony broke down into a long objection about whether Sam could testify to telling Nishad that he didn't think they did anything wrong. The evidence was ultimately disallowed. The testimony concluded with a discussion of the 11th hour plans to raise funds. Sam spoke to his attempts to raise funds from Apollo Global Management. He detailed his discussion with FTX General Counsel Kan Sun, but told a very different version of the story. Sam claimed quote, That said, Sam claimed to believe there were additional buckets of assets held within FTX which would cover Alameda's borrowing. Primarily, he seemed to be referring to using assets that customers had staked on the exchange to backfill Alameda's shortfall. Sam said, Now, of course, Sun's testimony had been very clear that he told Sam that the size of those buckets was dwarfed by the size of Alameda's borrowing. From there, we got into the cross -examination. Today's episode is brought to you by Kraken. For far too long, the whole financial system has been standing still, too slow, only on for certain hours, overly designed for some types of people, but not for others. Crypto, at its best, represents progress. It asks the question, what if? It invites people in instead of leaving them out. It's on 24 -7, 365, and moves at the speed of real life. Not everyone believes it, we've got our fair share of detractors, but that's the way it always is when you're building something new. Kraken is a crypto company that has been through the highs and lows of the industry, facing forwards towards progress throughout. And now they're inviting us to see what crypto can be. Learn more at Kraken .com slash the breakdown. Disclaimer, not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Cryptocurrency services are provided to U .S. and U .S. territory customers by Payword Ventures Inc., PVI, DBA, Kraken. The cross was led by Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, and she began the prosecution's cross -examination by establishing that Sam held majority ownership over both FTX and Sam was involved in Alameda's trading by 2022. He responded, depends on how you define trading. He added that, I would say I was not involved for the most part. I would not say I was not involved in any way at all. Now of course, the line of questioning was designed to trap Sam in a lie, which would be a running theme throughout the cross -examination. Sassoon presented evidence that Sam had told Caroline and Sam Tribuco, then co -CEOs for Alameda, to purchase OXI and MAPS tokens. Sam had written to them, guessing we should top longer one to two million of each over the next day or two. Sam rejected this position, claiming this was not a direction to trade. From there, however, Sassoon did get Sam to admit that he had directed Alameda to buy Japanese government bonds and place hedges, which Sam agreed was a form of trading. Sassoon then moved on to Sam's press tour. Sam agreed that he had tried to speak truthfully and precisely about the collapse of FTX. The vast bulk of Sam's answers were simply responding yes or no to the prosecutor. His lawyers had no doubt warned him to keep his answers brief to avoid a repeat of last Thursday's disastrous cross -examination. That was of course when Sam had testified without the jury present and continuously gave lengthy answers which provided additional fuel to the prosecution. Sam agreed that he had tried to be careful about what he said in public and had even cleared some of his comments with his public relations team. It was at this stage that Sam's recollection began to fail him and he became unable to recall what he said during various interviews, which would again be another theme of the cross -examination. Specifically, Sassoon turned to a Twitter Spaces held during Sam's media tour and asked Sam whether he had said that he was not involved with Alameda's trading and had not been for years at that point. Sassoon proposed to play a recording of the Twitter Spaces for the court to hear and to aid with Sam's suddenly faulty memory. The defense objected, claiming that the two sides had previously had a gentlemanly agreement to share exhibits to be used in cross -examination the night before. Sassoon said that the defense had not asked for these exhibits and there was nothing in court rules preventing her from playing the recording. The tape was played with Sam of course stating that he was not involved with Alameda's trading. Sassoon offered another exhibit showing that Sam had made public statements that he had stepped away from involvement in Alameda's trading due to conflicts of interest. In an article published by the Financial Times last December, Sam had said that this was quote, related to his role as guardian of customer assets. Sam of course could not recall making these statements. Sassoon moved on to statements about how Sam had pitched FTX. Sam acknowledged that he had promoted FTX to investors on the basis that its automated liquidation protocol set it apart from other exchanges. Sassoon questioned Sam about statements he made to Congress, describing FTX as a safe crypto exchange. Sam acknowledged general statements of that nature but said he could not recall specifically. After establishing that Sam communicated with potential customers using his Twitter account, Sassoon asked Sam if he made representations about how customer assets would be treated on FTX. Sam agreed with the premise but again couldn't recall specifics. She asked whether Sam had promoted FTX as a safe exchange. He responded that this might have been the case with FTX US but he wasn't sure about FTX International. When asked whether he acted like he cared about consumer protection, Sam responded, I think I did care about them, yes. Coming to the point, Sassoon asked Sam whether he made public statements that FTX was a safe platform. He responded, I remember things around specific parts of the FTX platform that were related to that. I don't remember a general statement to that effect. I am not sure there wasn't one. Of course, the prosecution had an exhibit to clarify Sam's memory. They presented a tweet from August 2021 which stated, As always, our users' funds and safety comes first. Putting an even finer point on the issue, Sassoon presented a tweet from October 2022 in which Sam had described the crypto ethos as economic freedom, the freedom to own your own assets. Sassoon managed to get Sam to acknowledge that when he made that tweet, he knew Alameda was carrying an $8 billion liability to FTX. Now what you see here is the pattern of what the prosecutor was trying to do. She's trying to catch Sam in lies that are relevant in the specifics but also relevant in the fact that he's just lying. Prosecution moved on to Sam's testimony in front of Congress. Sam admitted that he had filed a document which laid out FTX's key principles for ensuring investor protections on digital asset platforms. This document included numerous opinions on how to protect crypto customers including the avoidance of conflicts of interest. Sam acknowledged that conflicts of interest are a quote potential problem. Sassoon turned to Sam's public support for regulation. She alleged that it was simply a marketing ploy and not an earnestly held position for Sam which he disagreed with. Sassoon put it to Sam that quote, Sam responded, To which of course the prosecution presented a text message conversation between Sam and Vox's Kelsey Piper which had occurred in early November. Kelsey had asked Sam whether his pro -regulation stance was just for PR reasons. Sam was made to read his response to the courtroom. Yeah, just PR. Fuck regulators. Now Sassoon noted that Sam had testified under oath before Congress that FTX's risk management program required customers to pledge collateral on the platform itself rather than holding collateral off platform. Sam agreed that he had given roughly that testimony. The prosecution presented an exhibit of Sam's congressional testimony which sparked a humorous misunderstanding. The defense said that they had no objection to the exhibit as long as it wasn't being presented for its truth but merely as evidence that Sam had said it. Sassoon, a little perplexed, noted that it was Sam's own statements. When asked by the judge how she was offering the document, Sassoon responded, Sassoon presented Sam with a marketing deck published by FTX which described how poorly futures exchanges are designed. The document stated that rival exchanges had quote, lost hundreds of millions of dollars of customer funds to clawbacks. When asked to read a bullet point on how FTX was solving those issues, Sam obstinately responded, This gets to another point that many who are in the courtroom reported, that Sam was acting throughout this testimony fairly petulantly. Whether that endears him to the jury or not I guess remains to be seen. Sam was asked a series of questions which required him to confirm that customers were not allowed to use outside collateral to trade on FTX. For example, he acknowledged that a customer could not pledge their house as collateral. Seeming as though she had sprung the trap, Sassoon asked if there were any customers aside from Alameda who were allowed to pledge outside collateral not held on FTX. Sam responded, He said that a firm called CryptoLotus had been allowed to do this and that FTX had considered allowing Three Arrows Capital to use outside collateral as well. This unexpected answer seemed to throw Sassoon off her tempo. She asked follow -up questions about how large CryptoLotus' account was and whether this special privilege was disclosed to the public. The prosecution was then handed a note from an FBI agent seated in the front row who had previously given testimony. Regaining her bearing, Sassoon asked whether Sam was friends with the head of CryptoLotus. He responded that he was not. However, finding the right question, Sassoon asked whether Sam had a personal relationship with anyone at CryptoLotus. Sam responded that he had been friends with a more junior employee at the firm. Now, this line of questioning was essentially the only weak point in the cross -examination where Sam ever so briefly had gained the upper hand. However, Sam still brought home the point, getting Sam to admit that Alameda and CryptoLotus stood alone as the only firms allowed to pledge collateral, not custody with FTX. Turning to Sam's public statements about Alameda special privileges, Sam had a vague recollection of stating that Alameda played by the same rules as other customers but denied saying they had no special privileges. He said that, When asked if he said that Alameda and FTX operated separately, Sam responded that Contrary to that, however, the prosecution presented an exhibit in which Sam stated that Sassoon put to Sam that this statement was general and not limited just to frontrunning. Sam responded, Now, if you're scratching your head, basically the point here is that Sam is trying to argue that every time he said that Alameda was just like everyone else, he was only referring to frontrunning and that Alameda didn't have special access to CFTX users' trades. From there, there were a couple instances of the prosecution trying to catch Sam in low -stakes evasion. For example, he was asked whether he flew to the Super Bowl on a private plane. Sam responded that he couldn't remember. Sassoon quipped, Sam responded, Now, one of the more revealing parts of the testimony, which gets back to what I was saying before about how Sam just treated everything and every entity he owned as all part of one big conglomerate, Sassoon began to ask questions about more specific spending from Alameda. She asked about a tranche of Robinhood shares purchased by Sam using 546 million borrowed from Alameda. The loans were originated in May 2022. Sassoon established that shortly after the purchase, Sam transferred the shares into a holding company owned by Sam and other FTX executives. After a bit of back and forth about the corporate structure of various entities involved in the deal, Sassoon landed the punch. She presented an affidavit showing that Sam had tried to transfer the Robinhood shares from the FTX state into his own name. Sassoon asked, that at that moment, FTX customers could not withdraw funds. Sam answered that he was, Towards the end of the long day, Sassoon moved back to June of 2022, when Alameda paid back loans from external lenders. She asked if Sam knew this would put FTX at risk, which he refused to admit. Trying again, she asked whether Sam knew there was, Again, Sam avoided responding, saying that he, Sassoon asked whether this meant that Sam knew there was some risk. He responded that, Seeing her opening, Sassoon moved in for the kill. She asked, Sam said, I don't think that's what happened, and I'm also not saying that's not margin trading. An exasperated judge demanded that Sam answer the question. When asked if his testimony was that paying back lenders was a margin trade, Sam said, In response to further questioning on whether repaying loans was a margin trade, Sam offered the response, Now, this was broadly how the cross -examination went across the grueling hearing. Sassoon would often pin Sam down to a position, and then present evidence of seemingly contradictory prior statements. In other lines of questioning, Sam would say that he couldn't recall pivotal tweets and interviews throughout the rise and fall of FTX, and Sassoon would then put those words in front of Sam and have him read them back for the jury, or play back interview segments which showed Sam as fleeting the world, given what we now know. Now when it comes to how he appeared, Sam seemed evasive at times. Throughout the cross -examination, he answered that he wasn't sure or couldn't recall nearly times. 150 Most catastrophically for his case, Sam also appeared to be misleading. He was caught over and over and over again in contradictory statements on both large and small topics. The prosecution was able to put direct evidence to him regarding misleading public statements, and he failed to come up with a single convincing explanation. In other words, the cross -examination appeared to go about as poorly as it possibly could have for Sam, which of course was largely in line with the predictions offered by legal commentators throughout the case. Basically, every lawyer that has spoken to the idea of Sam giving testimony has repeated the traditional wisdom that a defense attorney should never allow their client to take the witness stand and open themselves up to cross -examination. With this dissection of Sam's narrative, we got a practical demonstration of why that legal advice is always given. Sam was constantly bristling at the questioning. Multiple reporters who are familiar with Sam's character noted that in the past, Sam would often snap during this kind of tough questioning. During Twitter spaces or hostile interviews, he would often belittle anyone who questioned his motives or his actions. With that response unavailable to him, Sam was obviously simmering with rage at points but had to keep a lid on it. The question, of course, will be whether or not the jury got the same impression of Sam as the scores of crypto reporters who packed the courtroom, each of whom are far more likely at this point with Sam's nature than they care to be. The prosecution was not done with Sam by the end of the day. They expected to take another couple of hours this morning to cement the theory of the case they presented in the opening arguments. That FTX was an empire built on Sam's lies. That Sam had lied to counterparties, to banks, to investors, and to customers. And that through their cross -examination, they were going to put Sam's lies front and center for the jury to see. Teddy Schleifer, a reporter at Puck News, summed it up this way. I feel like the big thing that Sassoon has really gone at is this idea of truth. That Sam is lying. All morning it's been, here's an interview you gave to a reporter. Here's something you said to Congress. Here's something you said on Twitter, to customers. It really makes me think back to the opening statement. How they're really going to make him out to be a liar. What's more, Teddy continued. Sam has not mounted a credible defense to date. The entire defense case is basically Sam. If you're a juror and you're trying to sit there asking what is the reason I have to vote to acquit, I don't know what you're looking at. You're basically believing that this character is more credible than the preponderance of documentary evidence and Caroline, Nishad, and Gary. I don't think Sam has given that juror a reason to acquit. Now Carly Riley, the host of Overpriced JPEGs, put it a little bit more bluntly. She said, incredibly semantic and pedantic for sure, but also like an asshole. One person said to me, So friends, that is the wrap of yesterday's testimony. I'm sure we will do a little conclusion tomorrow on the end of the cross -examination. From there, we will be on to the final witnesses for the defense, closing arguments, and then jury deliberations. But for now, we will wrap there, and I will say, until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL Podcast 10/31: Was Sam Bankman-Fried Taking the Stand a Huge Mistake?
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. An observation from sleep -deprived day 15 of Sam Bankman -Fried's criminal trial. Prosecutors embrace the inevitable outcome of male pattern baldness. Defense lawyers don't. This newsletter offers exhibit D, U .S. Attorney Damian Willems. The sovereign district's top cop strode into Manhattan's highest courtroom around 1130 a .m. Monday, his freshly shaved head glinting final twists of a big, big case, as one U .S. Marshal called it, against a defendant represented by two balding lawyers older than he, Mark Cohen, big bald spot, and Chris Everdell, small bald spot. I might have some insight into why prosecutors but not defense lawyers rock shiny crowns if I hadn't gotten to court nearly 11 hours earlier. Probably it would be something witty about the government's confidence in a case that the U .S. Marshal called a big W for Damian. Yes, let's run with that. Williams's deputy, Danielle Sassoon, is definitely not bald. She arrived donning a hairstyle my female colleagues in the press corps identified as a blowout. Sassoon's cross -examination evisceration of the alleged crypto fraudster was hard to watch. Determined to highlight inconsistencies in the former crypto chief's alternate history, the Assistant U .S. Attorney leveraged his prolific history of tweeting, interviewing, and testifying before Congress about FTX's purported greatness and safeness. She wanted to catch Bankman -Friede in a lie. After four hours, she'd at least gotten the next best thing. Evidence he's is a very unreliable narrator. Would you agree that you know how to tell a good story? Sassoon asked Bankman -Friede early on, prompting someone in the gallery to guffaw. Bankman -Friede audibly bristled at Sassoon's tactics. He taunted her in a sing -songy cadence when told to read FTX materials that contradicted him. His unyielding yeps started low on the Y and finished high on the P. He spent most of cross -examination repeating variations of I don't know sixteen times like sounds plausible twice I may have seventeen times I don't recall twenty -seven times and I'm not confident three times when asked about his own words. I can explain it if you want, Bankman -Friede offered on a handful of occasions where Sassoon forced him to accede into damning characterizations. She never took him up on it. His responses weren't always responses. Judge Lewis Kaplan reprimanded Bankman -Friede for avoiding prosecutor questions and interjecting his own. His gaze stayed mostly on Sassoon, but sometimes he darted to the jury box. There, seventeen pairs of eyes may have shot back a mix of skepticism and by the end of the day boredom and perhaps a bit of despair. Some jurors were growing visibly tired of Bankman -Friede's waffling I don't remember defense after four weeks of trial. A few new sleepyheads drifted off. Their get -on -with -it mentality was shared by Judge Lewis Kaplan, the press corps, and even Williams. He and his red folder marked confidential walked out of the courtroom early. Sassoon, however, shows no signs of letting up. She hasn't yet gotten a smoking gun out of Bankman -Friede, despite his waffling, but that's only because he spent so much of their standoff acting like the guy who already shot it and forgot. She'll go for another two hours of cross -examination today. The overflow room was collectively losing its mind at Bankman -Friede's testimony. It's not just what he said, but how he said things. He repeatedly said he didn't remember telling reporters key details about Alameda or creating documents acknowledging FTX and Alameda's financial ties. And every time he did, AUSA Sassoon would follow up with let's bring up government exhibits, something or other, in which Bankman -Friede said exactly the thing she was asking about. He gave the impression he was being shifty, despite the fact that government witnesses Gary Wang and Nishad Singh had similar responses to topics they said they did not recall. It's possible this is due to the rain. It was absolutely miserable yesterday. But far fewer people showed up at 9 o 'clock a .m. on Monday than had on Friday. There were maybe just north of 50 reporters and members of the general public by the time the courtroom and overflow room opened, though a second overflow room was still needed by lunchtime. Sassoon tried to pin Bankman -Friede on marketing FTX International as a safe exchange, as opposed to FTXUS, including by showing the end title card from an ad. No one picked up on this in court besides Danny, but the end title's fine print makes it clear the ad is for FTXUS. Looking forward, Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon anticipates spending another two hours or so cross -examining Bankman -Friede on later today. Once she's done, Defense Attorney Mark Cohen expects to spend maybe one or two more hours conducting a redirect examination. Assuming this gets us to maybe just past lunch, the Department of Justice does plan to present a rebuttal case. Prosecutors plan to call two witnesses, an FBI agent and an employee of Apollo Global Capital, a firm that was involved in talks to potentially rescue FTX last year. Former General Counsel Ken Sun and Bankman -Friede have both provided competing versions of what exactly those talks looked like. Judge Lewis Kaplan remains noncommittal with regard to the jury charge conference, saying he'll have more when the fat lady sings, an opera reference. Given that both the DOJ and Defense previously estimated needing two to three hours each for closing arguments and the judge expects a long conference, we can safely assume this will take us well into Thursday. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL Podcast 10/30: Sam Bankman-Fried Takes The Stand For a Third Day In FTX Fraud Trial
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. Sam didn't do it. He didn't defraud anyone. He didn't steal customer funds. He just built a company, which turned out basically the opposite of the product he envisioned when he founded FTX. A lot of people got hurt, customers, employees, and the company ended up in bankruptcy. At least that's his story. The biggest mistake was, we did not have a dedicated risk management team. We didn't have a chief risk officer, he told the court Friday. We had a number of people who were involved to some extent in managing risk, but no one dedicated to it and there were significant oversights. Bankman -Fried finally took the stand to try and convince the 17 people overseeing his criminal fraud trial that FTX and Alameda Research's collapse were the result of screw -ups and errors and of his handpicked lieutenants' screw -ups and errors, not a deliberate fraud committed by the 31 -year -old. Bankman -Fried's testimony echoed key parts of his attorney Mark Cohen's opening statement from the beginning of this month. Issues happened because ex -Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison didn't hedge, because FTX was a fast -moving company doing big things quickly because a number of market shocks hit and because Sam was just one person who couldn't be everywhere or do anything. We got a preview of sorts on Thursday, but Friday was the first time we saw Bankman -Fried really present his own case for why he shouldn't go to jail. The first half of Friday's testimony was basically a history of FTX presented by Samuel Bankman -Fried. For those following the case over the past year, nothing new. For those of us who have been tracking FTX since its founding, maybe a bit of useful detail, but basically really nothing new. But we're not the intended audience. The jury is. One audience member in the overflow room who said she did not have much familiarity with FTX or Bankman -Fried said she found it useful. And I overheard a few people at the end of the day Friday say they found Bankman -Fried's version of events plausible. Shortly after lunch, Bankman -Fried's defense team strategy continued to become clearer. It's not just that Sam didn't do it, it's that the Department of Justice's key witnesses are all lying. Bankman -Fried didn't say that, of course, but that seems to be the implication with a number of details. Take FTX's insurance fund. Former Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang told the court on October 6th that this was functionally a random number that was posted to FTX's website and later posted to social media. Bankman -Fried said he did not calculate the numbers implying what? I'm not entirely sure. My interpretation is he's implying someone else had the idea of putting a random number on the site or maybe FTX's 2021 revenue. Former head of engineering Nishad Singh testified that Bankman -Fried directed him to find a way to show that the company had generated over $1 billion in revenue for the year and to backdate revenue details to do so, which he ultimately did by marking staking rewards from EcoSerum to FTX's balance sheet at Bankman -Fried's direction. Sam proposed charging EcoSerum to the account that paid the interest, he said. On Friday, Bankman -Fried said he had not thought of EcoSerum staking at all and that he did not remember discussing backdating any documents tied to this. On hedging, Bankman -Fried said he discussed Alameda's risks with Ellison, the company's CEO at the time. She ultimately said that she would look into hedging Alameda's exposure, but I interpreted her to be far less enthusiastic than I was about it, he said. And while he discussed hedging with her every month or two through June 2022, this ultimately never happened. The June 2022 spreadsheet that keeps coming up this trial documenting Alameda's balances and liabilities once again showed its face, though not the infamous one that ultimately led to last year's bankruptcy. Ellison said on October 11th that Bankman -Fried suggested I should prepare some alternative ways of presenting information about the figures, which led to her creating a sheet with seven alternative presentations. She later reiterated that it was Bankman -Fried's idea to do this. On Friday, Bankman -Fried said it was Ellison who had thought about a few different ways of constructing the balance sheet. Intriguingly, Bankman -Fried said he didn't find out about Alameda's $8 billion hole, as documented by the fiat at FTX .com account, until October of 2022. But there are also parts that, at least as of Friday, have not yet been addressed. Assistant U .S. Attorney Nicholas Roos asked Wang why Bankman -Fried said Alameda Research should take on loss from a mobile coin exploit during their discussion about the insurance fund. He said that FTX's balance sheets are more public than Alameda's balance sheets, that investors have access to FTX's finances but not Alameda's finances, Wang said. While Cohen asked Bankman -Fried about Alameda taking on the mobile coin loss, the topic of investors having access to FTX's finances did not come up, and Ellison had previously testified that while she and Bankman -Fried had discussed hedging Alameda's risks and that Bankman -Fried blamed her for not hedging, in her view it was his decision to make venture investments and other financial decisions which put Alameda in an unrecoverable position by the fall of 2022. I felt that the fundamental reason we were in this situation was that we had borrowed these billions of dollars in open -term loans and used them for illiquid investments, all of which were Bankman -Fried's idea, she said. Ellison had also testified that Bankman -Fried knew the only way for Alameda to pay its lenders was using the line of credit, which meant using FTX customer assets. Again, these specific details did not come up. There's also the various group chats and written documents prosecutors have tied Bankman -Fried to, such as the one Singh testified about where Bankman -Fried, Bankman -Fried's brother, former FTX Digital Markets CEO Ryan Salame, or political consultants, organized political donations. On Friday, Bankman -Fried said he did not direct Salame or Singh to make specific donations, but he did hire political consultants, such as Guarding Against Pandemics, which his brother helped run. Bankman -Fried is going to continue his testimony on Monday, with Cohen estimating maybe two more hours of direct examination. Unfortunately for Bankman -Fried, and maybe the narrative he's crafting, that means that he'll again face Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, you know, the prosecutor who figuratively punched him in the face repeatedly last Thursday for what she described as a significant cross -examination. She said she doesn't think the cross will take a day and a half, but it'll certainly go into Tuesday. The latest plan in what's frankly a pretty dynamic situation is this. Cohen will continue his direct examination of Bankman -Fried on Monday and expects to wrap up before noon. Sassoon will start her cross -examination and that will wrap up sometime Tuesday. AUSA Thane Ren anticipates a two -hour rebuttal case. In other words, that'll probably go through to the end of Tuesday. Reuss and Cohen both anticipate about two or three hours for their respective closing arguments. There will then be a charge conference, which Judge Lewis Kaplan anticipates might be somewhat protracted, which is where everyone will argue over their various proposals for jury instructions. Judge Kaplan will deliver said instructions and jury deliberations may begin sometime Thursday, Friday, or conceivably Monday. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL Podcast 10/27: Sam Bankman-Fried Takes the Stand, In Front Of The Jury
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. Sam Bankman -Fried began his testimony like the brilliant former golden boy from crypto's better days. He ended the longest, strangest, most torturous day yet of his criminal trial more imperiled than ever before. Part of the problem is that the witness has what I'll simply call an interesting way of responding to questions, Judge Lewis Kaplan said before a gallery of exhausted faces late Thursday. They and he were the only audience around for a special hearing that turned what was supposed to be Sam's first day of testimony into a free -wheeling deposition, as defense counsel Mark Cohen put it. The only solace for Sam may be that the jury wasn't there to hear it. Kaplan had sent them home after lunch. He wanted to hold a for -my -ears -alone hearing to determine if some defense arguments were admissible, a practice he'd seldom done in his 29 years on the federal bench. This newsletter isn't so concerned with Sam is so concerned with giving every detail some airtime, we'll touch on them briefly for context. The defense wants to ask Sam about the lawyers he leaned on while running FTX and Alameda into the ground. The government does not want to let them do this. To be clear, this is only a portion of the defense argument. When Bankman -Fried shows up Friday to testify in front of the jury, he'll have broader issues to discuss. But even if we put aside the specifics, the main issue may still be that he'll be the one testifying, and he'll still be subject to a cross -examination. Judge Kaplan will decide whether to let both sides' arguments play out again before the jury. Assuming he says yes, we'll hear it all again and cover it then. Assuming he says no, well, you'll get the greatest hits here. Here's the gist. Sam Bankman -Fried soared high with a strong command of the narrative and its characters when his lawyers walked him through what was almost certainly a well -rehearsed back and forth. He reminded the gallery why so many people fell under the fast -talking crypto billionaire spell during FTX's good times. Sam stayed on script, repeatedly pointing the finger at former FTX general counsel Dan Friedberg and external counsel from Fenwick and Amp West. They drafted most or all of the documents around the various policies that Bankman -Fried says prove he didn't intend to defraud his customers, he testified. Sam excelled, and even Judge Kaplan seemed to know it. When the 78 -year -old jurist asked Sam to break down what a block explorer was, the explainer -in -chief launched into a lucid depiction of the websites crypto investors use to track where their tokens are. He emanated the eagerness and bravado of the technical boy wonder he used to be. Even before FTX collapsed, and especially after during an ill -advised media tour, Sam positioned himself as a confidence man with all the answers. His self -belief in the SBF ability to talk it out, this was paramount to the SBF image. Maybe it was the source of his powers. On Thursday, it was the fount of his floundering. Thirty minutes after the block explorer explanation, or maybe it was an hour, Sam's game of savvy answers gave way to jumbled evasiveness. On Thursday, it was an hour, Sam's game of savvy answers gave way to jumbled evasiveness. A bemused, slightly annoyed Judge Kaplan snapped back, you worry about block explorers? Everyone and their mother, literally, one prosecutor's mom was there, as well as the defendants, came to watch Sam Bankman -Fried spar with the government on his biggest stand yet. A rainbow -sneaker -wearing Michael Lewis caught a delayed red eye from California to lean in on the penthouse courtroom's wooden pews. In front of him, Sam's publicist nervously chewed on a blue pen, while three sketch artists added flares of color to their works. To their left, nearly 20 reporters scribbled in notebooks that were fast -running low on paper. All around the courtroom, a revolving cast of five or more U .S. Marshals kept everything under close control. Sam kept himself under control, or I guess his version of control, which is probably not the control his lawyers want, which would be under their control. He continues to present himself as the master of his own story. At least he thinks he is. During a blistering cross -examination by Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon, Sam Bankman -Fried voluntarily defenestrated his unrecognizably svelte frame into a treacherous pit of legal whoopsie -daisy that even Judge Kaplan tried to save him from and failed. Reminding us all that humans are persistence hunters, Sassoon had already distinguished herself throughout this trial as the government's patient testimony tactician. She lays traps that witnesses walk into, conjuring statements they can't escape. Her command of her sections of this case is such that she can refer to documents, narratives, and names that people like Sam really should know of, but don't. Her questioning of Sam forced the self -shore alleged fraudster deep into his own patchy memory hole. A typical back -and -forth went like this, Did you have any discussions with lawyers about the permissibility of Alameda spending FTX customer deposits sent to Alameda's bank accounts? I don't recall. So what do you recall? He wrangled around many of her queries with over -answers, non -answers, indirect answers, and apologies that he did not know more. The judge told him off for being slippery. Listen to the question and answer the question directly, Judge Kaplan instructed Bankman Freed at one point. On the stand, Bankman Freed licked his lips so often that it resembled something of a tick. His mouth must have been dry, because he downed at least three bottles of water. But he didn't treat those bottles with the angry fists that have subconsciously betrayed his state of mind before.
Unchained
A highlight from SBF Trial, Day 13: Before Judge, Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Gives Few Straight Answers
"Apple Card is the credit card created by Apple. You earn 3 % daily cash back upfront when you use it to buy a new iPhone 15, AirPods, or any products at Apple. And you can automatically grow your daily cash at 4 .15 % annual percentage yield when you open a high yield savings account. Apply for Apple Card in the Wallet app on iPhone. Apple Card is subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Apple Card owners subject to eligibility. Savings accounts by Goldman Sachs Bank USA member FDIC terms apply. Hi everyone. Thanks for tuning in to the Unchained Recap of the SPF trial for October 26th, day 13. On Thursday, in a sort of mock trial known as an evidentiary hearing, Sam Bankman -Free took the stand for the first time in his criminal case. However, the jury had been sent home. So his only audience was the judge in the packed courtroom. The purpose of the hearing, which took place after the defense's two other witnesses, was for the judge to decide whether to permit the defense to allow certain lines of testimony. However, it also gave a sneak preview of how SPF would perform in front of the jury. And so far, it seems that cross -examination could prove challenging for him. Under very pointed questioning from Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, SPF gave wordy answers in run -on sentences with multiple clauses and caveats, or responded by saying he didn't know or recall. Oftentimes, he looked down. He repeatedly apologized or said he was sorry. The contrast between her specific and narrow questions and his verbose responses at times made him seem evasive. At one point, Judge Kaplan got up and walked around behind his chair and later said of SPF, quote, "'The witness has what I'll simply call "'an interesting way of responding to questions.' For instance, while asking whether he believed that Alameda was allowed to borrow FTX customer funds and withdraw them from the exchange, he said, quote, "'I wouldn't phrase it that way, "'but I think that the answer to the question "'I understand you to be trying to ask is yes.' At this point, Sassoon requested that he look at the payment agent agreement between Alameda and FTX and asked him to show where the agreement said that Alameda could use FTX customer funds. There was a long silence, which coined us time to be two minutes in the courtroom.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL PODCAST 10/20: Our Favorite Quotes From Inside The Sam Bankman-Fried Courtroom
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk podcast network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk podcast network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. It's fall break. Thursday ended early after just two witnesses, former FTX general counsel Kan Son and Third Point's Robert Borogerdi, testified briefly, we won't be back in the courthouse at 500 Pearl Street until next Thursday, October 26, when we'll resume our normal analyses. Instead today, Coindesk's SBF trial team is proud to present our favorite after a brief delay pulling prospective jurors in. How close is the relationship between you and one of the, it's my husband's coworker? Judge Kaplan questioning a prospective juror about whether she really needed to fly to a wedding in Colombia. I don't understand the cryptocurrency, how it works. When the case first started, my son was the one that brought it to my attention. He did try to explain to me how it works. I don't actually still understand how cryptocurrency works. A prospective juror explaining his familiarity with the case. And just so we're all complete, who's Tom Brady? Judge Kaplan, making sure the goat was on the record. I don't think there is anybody in the room who has never seen a Toyota Corolla. Judge Kaplan in one of the first of his many slapdowns on lines of questioning he deemed unnecessary. It felt like a dorm in the sense that I was living with others, but not like a dorm in the sense that it was very luxurious. Former FTX developer Adam Yadidia describing his living conditions at an FTX apartment in the Bahamas, where he lived with several other executives. The first time we picked a number so high that it would never be hit. The number we picked was $1 billion, and then it was hit again. And then the number picked was $65 billion. Former FTX Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang explaining Alameda's line of credit. Microsoft stock must be plunging. Judge Kaplan, after Assistant US Attorney Danielle Sassoon, said she was done presenting spreadsheets to former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. One example is when Alameda paid what I believe was a large bribe to Chinese government officials to get some of our exchange accounts unlocked. Well, let's break that down a bit. Ellison during her testimony and a deadpan response from Sassoon. Why did you write a sad face? Sassoon, reading Ellison's text messages. Objection, Your Honor. This is confusing. Sassoon, capping off Ellison's day after defense attorney Mark Cohen, opened his cross -examination by needing several takes to correctly identify an email address. What he did with it afterward doesn't matter. This is like saying that if I break into the Federal Reserve Bank, make off with a million bucks, spend it all on Powerball tickets, and happen to win, it was okay. Judge Kaplan, questioning the defense's push to mention Anthropic AI during testimony. I have enough binders here to go into business. Judge Kaplan, complaining about paperwork like so many of us would like to. The nicest room in the house. Nishad Singh, explaining which room he lived in with his girlfriend and several other FTX executives at a luxury apartment in the Bahamas. Hashtag Eric Adams. Danielle Kudla, reading a tweet that Bankman -Fried retweeted. If you can get that one fixed, maybe you can work on my PC. Judge Kaplan, after a court employee sorted a technical issue. Mr. Roos, can you repeat those backwards? Those are actually my lotto numbers also. Judge Kaplan and Nicholas Roos, after Roos introduced a copious number of exhibits into the record. Professor, you used the word hashtag. Would you tell the jury what that is, please? Judge Kaplan, asking Professor Peter Easton after the witness described the mark preceding what looked like a crypto wallet address. Lest I forget it, when we're done, I would appreciate the government taking back all the used witness binders and so on which are beginning to threaten the stability of the bench here. Judge Kaplan, again being very relatable. Looking ahead, the trial is out of session until Thursday, October 26th. The DOJ expects to present two, maybe three more witnesses before wrapping up late that morning. The potential witnesses are an FBI agent who prosecutors hope they can avoid calling if they can reach an agreement with the defense, an FTX investor who may spend 30 minutes on the stand, and a customer who may spend 20 minutes on the stand. The defense will begin presenting its case, should it choose to do so, after the lunch break. Want to follow along? Sign up for Coindesk's new daily newsletter, The SBF Trial, bringing you insights from the courthouse and around the case. You can get the podcast each day right here by following the Coindesk Podcast Network. Thanks for listening.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL PODCAST 10/13: Listen to the Things SBF's Defense Lawyers Should Be Freaking Out About and Caroline Ellison Completes Testimony
"Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coindesk Podcast Network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman -Fried will try to stay out of prison. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get the audio each morning with content from the Coindesk regulation team and voiced by Wondercraft AI. For a moment Thursday, it looked like Sam Bankman -Fried's lead attorney, Mark Cohen, was lulling the U .S. Department of Justice's star witness, Caroline Ellison, into a false sense of security on the stand. The former Alameda Research CEO was clearly comfortable testifying during her cross -examination. She answered yes or no, questions with unnecessary levels of detail, a generally unwise practice for witnesses in a criminal trial. The government's star witness even corrected Cohen's choppy pronunciation and wording on certain questions. And yet, at the end of a nearly five -hour back -and -forth the press corps hoped would be fiery, Cohen rested without proving his expected point—that Caroline Ellison was perhaps more responsible for FTX's collapse last November than his own client. It was an argument Cohen seemed to telegraph in his opening statement, when he blamed Ellison's failure to hedge Alameda's bad crypto bets as somehow paramount. By his closing question to Ellison, he'd seemingly failed. Cohen, a well -regarded white -collar crime attorney, also failed to severely undermine Ellison's credibility. He landed one solid hit on the crypto empire's insider trustworthiness when he caught her conveniently forgetting the somewhat positive characterization of Bankman -Fried's awareness of their various alleged criming that she'd lodged during extensive pretrial interviews with prosecutors. A feverish -sounding, immediate intervention from Assistant U .S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon indicated she understood the moment's gravity. Judge Kaplan, who hates sidebars even more than the morning's court security officer hates cell phones, then called for one, revealing that he, too, understood. Did the jury? Probably not. Cohen did not bring up any questions about her recreational drug use. He did not deeply probe her past romantic relationship with Bankman -Fried. Granted, doing so might have caught jurors' ire. While answers to his initial line of questioning suggested Ellison ran Alameda on her own with little oversight from the defendant, possibly contradicting her testimony from Wednesday, Cohen dropped that angle fairly quickly. He also did not capitalize on Ellison's aggressive over -answering. Cohen did a verbal double -take when his binary question was hacking a risk to Alameda. Yielded, yes it was, it happened a few times from Ellison. And yet he did not follow up. Cohen's cross -examination plotted through old ground. He wrapped on a superficial kicker that cast Ellison as a baddie, but hardly worse than Bankman -Fried. To be clear, the defense has not yet begun presenting its case or confirmed that it has one at all. We don't know what final arguments they'll make to demonstrate Bankman -Fried is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And the attorneys are limited in what they can discuss during cross -examination. They can only discuss issues brought up during the prosecution's initial direct examination. But Thursday's lackluster questioning of a key witness to the operation and collapse of what was once a multi -billion dollar empire continues a trend by the defense team. Christian Everdell, Cohen's partner in the courtroom, had a similarly aimless cross -examination with Gary Wang, another former FTX executive, on Tuesday. There, Everdell focused on specific details about Wang's signing of loan agreements with Alameda, his cooperation agreement with the DOJ, and the Alameda software bug. But he failed to really poke holes in the former chief technology officer's testimony or argue that his testimony was solely to advance a government narrative. By contrast, the DOJ has so far crafted what seems to be a clear, straightforward narrative. Sam Bankman -Fried took billions of dollars from his customers and investors, and he directed his closest friends to do things that enabled him to take these funds. He then gambled those billions on risky bets and poor corporate governance and lost. But the main issue at the heart of the government's case is that he took the funds to begin with. Thursday's knockout blow came at day's end, when prosecutors played secret tapes of Ellison revealing to her Alameda underlings that the company had used FTX as its personal piggy bank. It was a Watergate -esque moment that captured the jury's full attention. The prosecutors Alexander Butterfield equivalent, an Alameda software engineer named Christian Drappe, testified about the secret tape in a somber, if kind of messy, black suit and black tie. His contribution may well have buried the defense. The defense's ineffective response attempted to discredit Ellison's smoking gun tape from the all -hands meeting by playing a section where she laughed and said it had all been fun. But prosecutors mitigated that attack vector by getting Drappe to confirm Ellison nervously laughed all 18 months he knew her. Judge Lewis Kaplan even commented on the defense's possible fumbled play after the jury was sent out during a break. You have spent the last day and a half doing your level best, and I'm not criticizing. I understand it's your job. You should have been doing it, trying to impugn her credibility. You did that in the opening statement. You are going to do it in closing, he said during a back and forth on admissible evidence.
The BosBabes
"danielle" Discussed on The BosBabes
"And because you are such a bright light, I want you to end this podcast. I think this actually might be a two parter because we are a little over an hour into it. And I think it might be cool to split this up into two. So with this two part podcast special, lead us or end us with some positive pop. Okay, so I would say, and my mom always used to say this to put out the energy that you want to receive. Don't dwell on the negative. If you keep thinking about something negative, it's just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. You need to focus on the positive and find a way to spin it so that it is positive works in your favor. And when it comes to your kindness and your soul and the love that you put out, you're going to receive that tenfold. So I just feel like I always tell my kids just, you know, to be sweet, to be kind to help others and put out what they want to receive. And I feel like that's my biggest takeaway so far. That is some beautiful positive pop and share my boss phonetics are fully enjoying this two part special with you and I'm sure they loved that positive pop. It's a fantastic way to end this episode. And before we even wrap up, I want you to shout out your social media, both your personal one of course and the at my Danny design, that way again, you guys can go ahead and check out her work. Again, it's a fairly new company, and I applaud Danielle for actually sliding in my DMs. Great to connect with others in the industry. And I hope that we bump into each other sometime down the road, whether it be virtually again, or maybe in person. And it's good to help support others that are starting their businesses. Again, please shout out your social media. So I actually had to look at my personal and because I just didn't even remember, honestly, I
What's the 311
"danielle" Discussed on What's the 311
"And welcome to Sonia's podcast. Story time, y'all. So this story is about 17 year old girl. Who her name is Danielle. Whole mother's boyfriend actually slid her throat, but she survived. She's contains adult themes and graphic violence. Listener discretion is advised. So so the young girl one day she comes home from school. And she comes in the house, she noticed that the lights are out. But her mom is at work and she thought that the boyfriend Dante was at work too. But he wasn't. So she noticed he was standing there so she was like, Dante water lights out. So he said it was a power outage. So she looked around, you know, the neighborhood to see that everybody else likes was on except theirs. So he told her to go get the brush 'cause he needed to brush. So she goes into her mom's room to get the brush. But when he goes, when she goes into her mom room to get the brush, he tries to strangle her. So now he's strangled he strangles her and he cuts out the rope. So now she's bleeding profusely like really, really bad. So now she's holding her throat. But she's not dead. So now she's, she's playing dead. She's actually playing dead. So she's playing dead because how she's playing dead is that she's holding her breath. You know how I went swimmers hold their breath. So she's holding her breath. So Dante goes and check for a pulse, but he doesn't feel anything. So he wraps her up in a cover and he just leaves her. So now she thinks he's gone. But he's not. So she tries to get sit herself up to look for a phone to call the police, but there's no phone. So she hear Dante's coming back into the room. So she goes, she gets back under the cover. She holds her breath to play dead again. So, he takes the cover, wraps her in it, and throws her on the floor. So now she hears her mom car she hears the mother's car, but before she hears her mother car, she's thinking like, oh my God, he's going to, you know, he's going to rape because before she even throws on the floor, this is what she thinking like, oh my God, he's going to rape me now. But no, instead, he just takes her a rapper in the coming throws on the focus he hears her mom car. So now as her mother is approaching the house, this thing doesn't slit his wrists and the mother's thinking that he is really cut back. She see all the blood, but she think like he's cut really bad. So she's like, oh my God, we got to get you to the hospital. How did this happen? So she hears her mother sing and in her heart she's like, I want to get up and just run to my mother and hug my mother, but if I do, he's going to kill her too. This is what she's really saying. So he's like, nah, I'm going to be all right. You know, everything's going to be fine. So now he was like, oh, yeah, we could go to the hospital. So now the mother goes and runs to get bandages to help him. He takes the young girl body and throw it out on the back porch. What in Florida call a lie because it's closed in. So, but on there is no door. It's just stuff with their stores, you know, things that. So now that she's like, she's on the back porch, she's still in that cover. She's bleeding still badly. So now her mother come back in the room and her mother's like, you know, bandage it in him up. So she somehow God gave her the strength to stand up. And she's looking at him and he noticed she's looking at him. So he tells the mother like, oh, let's go, let's go. Yeah, let's go to the hospital. So, finally, she sees her little brother. So her brother's like, she tells her brother, go run, call the cops. So now her mother sees how running torture and her mother like what happened to you. So he tells a little brother, oh, I see what happened to it. They ran that way. So before she collapsed, she tells her mother, her mother's like, who did this to you? What happened to you? She's like, Dante did this as she collapsed. Before she collapses. She tells her mother that he did, you know, he the one who said her throat. So now the cops come arrest him. He gets what, 15 years for aggravated assault. Thank y'all for listening to storytelling. We're selling it, please follow me at SB 7 6. Please leave a comment at SV.
Let's Talk About It
"danielle" Discussed on Let's Talk About It
"That deep intimacy. But the more that I got to know him. Yeah. I just, I like he is beautiful. Like he's the he's amazing and I can't even put it into words who he is. He's the closest friend I've ever had. He's the best father. He's just everything. And I think that's the driving thing for me. Something that try to instill in my kids like the relationship piece and just realizing like, man, at one point I didn't. I just wanted his healing. And it's like, it's like the lepers that Jesus and they all leave the wine. Because they just want it the healing, but the other one he wanted more. So I guess the question that asked yourself and your shame is, what do you want? Do you want temporary healing? Or do you want like lasting fulfillment in Christ? I think that's a good thing to end up. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story and being vulnerable. It was beautiful. Yeah. And I love your podcast is all that you've shared on there. I know that sharing your journey of healing and just your struggles has really helped me in my own journey, my own story, and it's just beautiful. Thank you. That just I think that's the, that's such a gift because I remember being like, what am I doing? Like what? That's what we feel. What am I doing? And I mean, I still sometimes feel it, but it's just like, wow, got you would take this journey and the fact that I still struggle to encourage another sister and even men 'cause I haven't been on the podcast too. It's just beautiful. Gloria guy. Redemption. Restoration. Anything, you know what I mean? We just let them in. He'll do it. Look, even if we don't want a lot of men, he seems like I'm coming for you. I know. That's true. That's the beautiful thing. Adam. Where are you? She comes after us. Yeah. Yeah. So y'all, y'all do such a wonderful job and I feel equally about y'all. Just so many of your podcasts. I need to listen to more, but I just, when I listed, I'm like, wow, it's so good and healing for me to so thank you for what you do. Good, yeah. Well, hey, everyone take Danielle's advice and go out and find a trusted person to open up, maybe just about one area that you've been struggling with. I think that's a good a good goal to have. As we walk into this next week. Yeah. And don't be afraid to talk about it..
The Tennis.com Podcast
"danielle" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"To be able to see that part of the world. I think i just have so much excitement and enthusiasm when i go over there. Because it's just one of the most beautiful countries i've ever been to and Really a great fan base. I feel like when you're playing. Their people are so respectful they appreciate tennis players and athletes so much and i think as players we really feel that from the fans i think we love playing in front of the crowd there and i always feel like i have a lot of great support and Yeah it's just a one of my favorite places to play with the climate as well. It's very similar to florida With the humidity. And i think so much of me when i'm over there. It reminds me of of being at home. So you are one of those people like when you were sort of ascending to where you are now when you're like fifty sixty and you weren't seeded people like please. Don't let me play danielle. She grew up beating me no matter what. She's ranked showers. So who's that player for you. That when the draw comes out you like please let me play this person. None of them..
The Tennis.com Podcast
"danielle" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"We also had a chance to sit out with danielle calms daniel one of the most fearless and fiercest competitors on tour very honest and open and i think her personality is the reason why she is. Having these successes. She is now. She is just fearless and quite frankly just goes after and i think in this episode two so honest and she reveal your easily able to connect her personality her game. Take a listen. Welcome to the tennis. Dot com podcast. We have been extremely extremely special legendary personality..
That Sounds Fun with Annie F. Downs
"danielle" Discussed on That Sounds Fun with Annie F. Downs
"The nights that you were with me was a woman who was in a wheelchair because of ms and was able to walk with unassisted without a walker without a came. And i remember thinking. It's amazing there's five hundred. People are six hundred people in this room. Who are hearing the story. But how does the rest of the world here feels selfish for me to set and just be able to soak it in and not be able to go out and share it and so when i was first starting to craft this book i knew that one of the things that i wanted to do is try to share as many of the stories. I've heard over the last decade. That i could in there. Yeah well i can't wait for people to get. I mean this. This is such a phone to read because we all have to eat so all of us know about food so there's not a person hearing this that isn't affected by food and so i just think it's going to be such a gift. It is such a gift. I loved it. He is there anything we so nervous about. Are you more. Oh gosh. I'm so nervous about it. Are you kidding yes i mean first of all. It's my first book book. I always say this to all of you author friends that i'm like. Yeah i four hundred page cookbooks. But every other page is a photo so the amount of words in the book is significantly less so obviously. The writing process was really difficult. But it's really as you know. It's really hard to put all of your failures and try and triumphs all of your all my setbacks everything in there and i'm just i'm well i'm nervous first of all of course that it's not going to get into the hands of people that i'm really praying and hoping that it will But just also that you know that it does what i hope it does and did being in the hospital and twenty nineteen after i had already like laid out the whole book and the title i is you right and feeling like i was a complete failure and that everything i believed in was not true because of where i was was really difficult to get through and finished that book and add to it and it kinda changed the meaning of the title to me it added like i said many chapters it it it also forced me to really get to look back on that decade and everything that had happened and renewed my faith in the fact that food did heal me. It did save me in that. It's continuing to but it's it's a. It's a difficult road. I talk about being ongoing on a medication again for the first time in a decade and during that hospital stay and how that made me feel about knowing that food could could be so healing but also relying on the medication in tandem with that and just the failure complex that comes with that but then also learning now over the last couple of years to be appreciative of that. Know that whatever it takes to keep me healthy and being there for my family and not being worried about possibly landing in the hospital again is all that matters so yeah there's still. There's a lot in there. It's nerve wracking. Kirk cookbooks are easy. I'm like somebody doesn't like one recipe. Fine fine yeah yeah. It's just it's your life like it's your life up for interpretations slash reviews so But i did it in hopes that it will help people and give them hope and help them find kind of. I hadn't renewed resolve to take an active role in their healing especially for believers. Like there's there's some things that we have to do to walk hand in hand with asking for healing and so that's that's another message. That's in there. Well i will go ahead and say to you. This book is going to help. So many people danielle. It's go many people. It is such a gift and you weren't. I walked with you in this. You worked so hard on this book and you. You overcame a lot of things that the world will never know. And and so. I just i just want to affirm you that this thing really matters it really really. Thank you for your support to an encouragement through the process. Because of course yeah you were there you were there through it so luckily i'm on your names in the book striving little. There's a little story about you in. Yeah that's right. i don't love the story. I feel sad about this story. But don't because it's about us praying the lord not do well. That's true too. I feel sad about that but it leads to a beautiful part of the book and so it matter it does but it does the but that was a hard couple. Yeah but yes now but it was. It was good because it taught it taught me now again to ask for things and it may not look like it was like you hoped it would but really coming out of that hospital. Stay and looking back on. All of that is i mean. I learned so much just by reading about the things that i had previously learned. We tend to forget the thing. Yeah so getting to actually like have that gift of looking at all of the different things that i learned that had helped me over the years and being like. Oh that's right so so yeah while it wasn't exactly what i was hoping. I think it's a good story that leads to a beautiful part of the but i agree. I agree okay. Dan the last question. We always ask because the show is called. That sounds fine. Tell.
The Lawfare Podcast
"danielle" Discussed on The Lawfare Podcast
"So we've looked at an example couple examples where the blinders are on in. Both communities are all communities and were not drawing connections that we should be drawing and here. We have an example where the blinders are not on people. Are you know as this technology develops talking about the relationships between thanks to the two of you talking about the relationships between the national security problem and the personal security sexual privacy problem that suggests to me both in a positive negative sense that these communities actually have a very fruitful dialogue to have with one another and that there is that we think of them as the ven diagrams are very separate circles. But in fact there's a significant space of overlap. That is really really fruitful. When you spend time in it and so my question to you is what are the barriers to that you know. They're they're very different communities. They don't they don't live with one another they don't talk to one another very much and so on just interested in your thoughts. What would a what would a dialogue in a in a sustained serious way between the sort of feminist privacy law types and national security concerns. Look like and what. What are the big impediments to it. So it strikes me that this room is precisely to the answer to that question at the net. Set girls community is is precisely the community. That's going to help bridge those conversations that so often not see a problem is because we don't know who suffering from it and it's not highlighted. It's not before our eyes and so this community and an and the work at l'affaire and some of the work that you know we'll do together is going to be part of that and facilitating conversation. Because i think there's no doubt in my mind that they've been some hamam moments that mo- longer can we say they're separated. They're not just aggregated. They're part of the same story. So i actually think we're part of an early conversation. That's going to keep growing the more. Unfortunately we see some of these tactics that are used against more vulnerable people are going to be used fruitfully by state actors. So i guess what are they saying. We're ground zero in that important work of that conversation that i think will only build. And you're right it like. I don't normally sit down with generals right or god. Bless love adam chef but or or but you know i found myself having conversations with them right at the committee hearing and then staffers. So hopefully we just all join that conversation and bring those stories to folks either as policy makers you know in the legislature executive branch through litigation in the courts. We're going to have to bring them to the table. Let's take some audience questions. had it guys Good afternoon. I think it's afternoon My question is actually about an intersection of this. That i think we kind of brush past a little bit and it's the old notion of like the honeypot right. So as more women are entering the national security field they are going to become vulnerable to opposing seat actors threatening and discrediting them and back in the day. They used to do this by tricking cia agent or whatever into a compromising situation with a person who was an agent posing as a sexy lady. But now you don't even have to be in the same room to take that picture because all you need to do as hack the cloud or you have to find their ex boyfriend who hates their guts and even just a photo and make a deep fake sex or that. I mean but the reality is that the ability to take images has become so much more easy and more young women are entering this workforce that becomes a vulnerability for us and i just went to a presentation on an sf. Eighty six. And i can't imagine having to go in to my employer. Say i have taken a nude photo of myself in the past and disclose that as vulnerability in the same way that once you may have been expected. Disclose something else like a financial vulnerability because that is a vulnerability for young women. Is this image of me is out there somewhere. And maybe it's an ex boyfriend or maybe it's a hacker museums. Just the club So first of all. I you know it is not just a vulnerability for young women and so vulnerability for young men as well and in fact there is a One of the weirder corners of the world of extortion is kind of industrial effort to sex store military age men and there has been actually had to be guidance on it from from some of the services because enough people were being caught up in these schemes and the scheme is pretty simple. You're beautiful woman. Friends you on facebook and you get to chatting and your nineteen year old. Enlisted guy right and She sends you a nude picture and asks for one and you send her one and then it turns out that the beautiful young woman is actually a call center in the philippines. That wants ten thousand dollars and you know these are. This is a pretty standard scam now. And it's catching a lot of people so your point is exactly right. But it's it's all the issue is not just a you. Know a security clearance. What could be stolen from you. It's also a real time thing. Do you have further thoughts on this. Danielle and i guess what i was thinking is that it's gonna sort of force a conversation about kind of how we grapple with us which one antics just a conversation. Ben and i have had offline about when you have the person that's being sex door did. My view is a course..
Culinary School Stories
"danielle" Discussed on Culinary School Stories
"Follow that way and learn staff or you can Click on the podcast tab. And it'll come up with all of the episodes for the show and you can have two tabs open. You can read along with it while you're listening to it And then we also have a facebook group Which is facebook dot com slash groups slash kitchen survival guide at in there. We actually were able to come up with modules units that have the same blog post type format. But there's also quizzes and there's also other resources where we can put in videos and things like that so that you get kind of full immersive you know i would say it's probably kintu attending a culinary school right now with covid where online anyway so you know and but it's free so that's fantastic and And the quizzes are there. If you're in culinary school you're trying to prepare for a test on something. If you're trying to take red sealed test you can go through the quizzes from start to finish or you just want to have your general knowledge. Tested their dad's there And then we also have. Obviously facebook page twitter. Instagram and not one is at kate at cheap podcast. Great so the main one ks g which stands for kitchen survival guide ks g podcast dot com great. And so where did you start. Podcast where did you get the experience. Where did you learn. How did you know how to get. Mike's and then then scouted recording equipment and how to do this whole thing. Honestly my dad was.
The Exsellence Mindset Podcast
"danielle" Discussed on The Exsellence Mindset Podcast
"It is love me enough to tell me when i'm wrong. Be gracious enough to walk me through. When i'm struggling but be honest be straightforward and i think too many people sugarcoat stuff because they're afraid to lose a client or offend somebody like no that's just wasting everybody's life. Yeah i don't have time to waste people's lives and that was something i learnt at being in my position was having to allow people to buy back at that and be mad at the truth because they don't like to hear the truth but i know when i got them in that space that they're fighting back making a difference because they're not getting the fluff they're actually in the transformation there. Yeah that's good. Yeah what one of my favorite things with my own clients is is when they tell me something and then later on tell me something that they wanna be or did they want to do. And then you know. We'll talk a week or two later mcso. Hey you know how did got ha like hold on a minute. You told me you told me that you wanted to achieve or the what happened. Well you know like no either. You lied to me or you allowed something else to distract you from getting to you know so again. It's it's cutting through all that and it's it's that mirror of reflection. It's just telling them exactly what they've told us. So that's so good so good. Doesn't everybody wanna work with danielle. Right now i mean come on like this is what you really want like really want people that are going to help you through these things. Okay so what does the future hold for you throughout this crazy. Number of impacting a million entrepreneurs. That's pretty wild but like what. What do you see is your future. Maybe a little bit more term future in where your business goes next..
Investor Mama
"danielle" Discussed on Investor Mama
"Elderly you care for them. Aid eight someone because they may have lower income. So that's kinda my little way of thinking about the difference so now without further ado danielle. Welcome to the show. How you doing. It's my pleasure to be here. Thank you great. Great well before we get into the meat of this episode. Why don't you give me a little bit about your background and your money journey okay. Sure so. I've been in money nerd my whole life. I guess you could say my dad is one of these serial entrepreneur people and as kids. We were really into that. We were a little entrepreneurs. We'd run around the neighborhood and offer to wash people's cars or take their track shout or walk their dogs. We were always my brother. And i coming up with some money making scheme and my parents supported that they were they. Were very supportive of you being a person. That's kinda major own way. And so we always as we were kids planning and saving and my parents had some expectations of us about going to college. But also not that we're gonna pay for all of it. You guys are going to pitch in and it was really great because it. It taught us very early on about the value of earning your dollar and so back in two thousand and four. I had been working in the staffing industry for about ten years and i was really burnt out on it and i always came back to this idea of. I wanted to work for myself. What could i do to get started. And i must have looked for two years trying to figure out what business would be exciting and challenging for me to go into and then a friend of mine invited me to an interview with an insurance company was one of those group interviews where they tell you all about the opportunity and i love the idea of working in the health insurance market. 'cause you can help people understand something that was really confusing but you can also be an insurance agent and earn commissions on that every month so long as a person stays on the books.
Mastering Finland
"danielle" Discussed on Mastering Finland
"Mastering i'm gene in california. I'm beth from the to about our life. Hello welcome back to mastering finland. And today i would like to welcome danielle. She's the postpartum dula who lived in finland during her school years and now sheraton back to finland to continue her story while danielle..
Hey Moms in Business
"danielle" Discussed on Hey Moms in Business
"You're always talking about real estate and if you're not talking about you're watching shows on it and i'm like him and so it was at that time that i was like i genuinely liked that. This is a hobby for me. I love that. I get to step outside to things. I love showing up at connect with people at my healthcare office. Then i get to go do something for me. Which is like looking at homes whether it's commercial space residential. I just love talking i love. I love seeing people. It excited about it I just love breakthrough through model any of it so to me. It is a hobby. And i think it's because it was a later in life you know found love. It's funny because growing up my aunt. I wonder remax brokerage in wisconsin. And i actually did. Work study in highschool at papers in high school to get out of school early and never went through. They like you should be a rotor. Or never like i was like i don't understand that like it's gonna be really hard dealing contracts that you know homes and stuff in never clicked for me and i think my parents say to me. Now they're like. Oh my gosh what would have been like if you would just started real estate eighteen. Forget college student loans or you know going to get a business degree like what if you just did that and i was like honestly that would have been saved me a lot of money but i was in school that right but i was like that it would have never translated into a passion project or like a hobby because then it would have. It didn't feel like a calling. It would have been just something. I had to do. A job at showoff as plus real estate in wisconsin. Where i live is a little different than expected to. I don't know what y'all have luxury homes up there guys. I love that. That's so cool. Because i feel like you know when we are like moms and showing up in taking kids to sports or whatever you have to very active daughters so Has been with the business that you're very much a part of like it is so important to trying for yourself. It's awesome. That real estate ended up being that you who don't get me wrong like there are elephants in my house. I tell you got to tell you that. I am so compelled to learn more about your practice. I'm so compelled to learn more about you. You've been and interesting and i. I'm so grateful that we got to talk with you. Know use more on the show about a comment on the share. This line be heated to hear that. So hi nicole. If i can resonate with anyone you know everyone's journeys different and you know prior to this. I was like. I hope i can just one person that you know something. I can resonate with them or are going out there. No please reach back out to me. I am off my handle their for you to follow me or connect i i love it. I can be of anyone's service or the questions reach out. Yes please danielle. Thank you so much of course as always thank you. Kristen don't pop off home. We if you buy out there know anyone who needs to be a guest Reached out to kristen or reach out to me and let us highlight another amazing woman. So thank you offer watching and had a one day awesome..
Hey Moms in Business
"danielle" Discussed on Hey Moms in Business
"We had to do a learn business without coaching or really anything That just translated into everything else. We do right and so What it also did was all those connections Really helped me because people Us as thought leaders in health community here in queen creek And the surrounding area and those people started coming in as clients and trusting us getting to know us and so whenever we have something going on in our life like when i decided real estate school it was like gosh. How can we support or they see me studying at the clinic. Or you know being a part of my and so the trust was already there so i feel like that started my client base. And that's really my sphere of influence in my people because they are not and i get to one of the things people don't know is i. Yes i have a brokerage office. But i actually work out of my healthcare clinic office three days a week because i'm sitting in my sphere and i get to connect with those people every day. So sometimes they say. I'm not a fulltime agent. I'm more like part time. But i'm really in my my influence more fulltime right between the to my home office. My clinic office And so that definitely helped having that business catapult my next phase in my next business. It was almost like as soon as i got done. I had people ready to go. So i have. I love that. That is the perfect introduction to our conversation because really talked to enceladus kristen hundreds of agents and one of the things you know they come to me for advice. How do i get better in real estate. In my go-to thing is is ninety. Six percent of Pretty much ignore their center of influence. Just and so you just have rap process and procedure around taking care of your center of influence and communicating with them then in the top four percent by default. Even if you suck it everything else boy. And i think for new agents one of the hard thing is finding a center of influence or maybe they just seemed some mentorship into what that is. Maybe they're already a part of you know whether it's a church group or a a moms group fitness class on. What have you. You just seem to connect in more and you also need to be telling everyone that you are an agent you know and that was one of the things that i heard asli would. It was my time. I had but i i would study in be taking my tests than if i didn't do well. I was sharing it as a part of my during like you know just being vulnerable people in allowing them in they actually. They gravitate towards the more they wanna support. You know your regular person. And so i made that a part of my journey. Because i didn't want to. Danielle turned real estate agent. You know i'm cool of doing that. But i also thought. Well if i could organically just drip in what i'm doing and by next phase of my journey than people might organically wanna come to me a little bit more so i notice you went into the clinic the other day and she has her listing signs up next Not like halo. It is definitely smart because people are going to look at. That was like one of the first things my eyes went to. Maybe just because. I'm in real estate. Yup really did it was. I think that's intentional. It definitely was my girlfriend. My girlfriend's has daily had this really great cheese agent to that you know That like a sold sign with my name on it too. And so i had that behind a little bit and then i had these. New listing signs made it. I'm like you know what i'm gonna drink this year and i've thought about maybe twenty twenty one..
The My Future Business™ Show
"danielle" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"Business coco is one member of beyond his end nation and we have other members of the amazon nation as well on this across on unit. This couple of embroidery units And these are all run by women. Full women as well And where in regular communication with all of them fantastic do you. Do you think they will be an expansion of the by set of skews that you may be offering women in the future beyond these sorts of skew sets cam. You know being able to become teachers or other things things like that whereas stop not at this point in time at this point in time with purely focused on the three missions that he's getting the women to grow stronger to make sure that they stay healthy to start with. That's number one. You know so. They have face. Masks person has clean drinking water and they provide healthy food. you know. It's a job to make sure that. As he said have bought emmons regular vitamin and blood tests dietitians to make sure they can actually function and then to give them regula work providing an education institute as a whole different thing but right now with hughley into keeping them in their environment giving a missed opportunity empowering women as much as possible notes excellent. You can see it coming to you the coming to the workplace and have that small device the baiming. They've got they're standing you you've transformed. I is probably the best to us here. tell us about a success story. Can you share any success stories with us that stick in your mind walls. It means one one of the lady said to me once danielle you give us wings to fly but what we really do is just in able them to realize their own. Potential is all realizing that own capability. And as i said having their voice be heard so one of the success success stories. Is that girl who went for more than a week from for not being hit the background of that is that at work. They taught to make decisions from the very beginning. Is this the same or different. How are you going to solve that problem. Who else can you asked to solve this. How so lots questions always asked to force these people to think Which they've never done before and so once that becomes second nature and they implement that thinking stolid at home very quickly turns into. What made you wanna do that. Why did you hit me. that's unacceptable. it's steps up. The game doesn't it. yes very much. So and so the you know the ladies Glow from within and they learn all sorts of leadership skills along the way so with coping. One part of your involvement with the autism nation. The nation work itself. What can you see in terms of the next twelve months has had you see it unfolding. Now we've got to villages and by the end of the next twelve months. If we had up to somewhere between ten and twenty villages it would be amazing. Obviously a very very worthy target. I'd say many more than that would be the ultimate goal. Let's talk about The mechanics behind how corporates can actually get involved. Can we do that for the yes. Sure so go to the amazon.
The My Future Business™ Show
"danielle" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"Something that is getting the would at the so that everybody starts to know about it with the him you talk about corporates but also spent some time rating in what notices that. You have a lot of different specialists involved. You've got people are clinical people providing bloodworks to work dot and dietitians and a whole host of different professionals. That are involved because you talk a little bit about that. Well now those professionals that we've involved a local women again because when these women go to a doctor in india will lodge them. Don't really have ready access that the way that these doctors treat these women is nothing short of appalling up being the first hand receiving end of that and i actually knew what was going on so the way that they speak to these women is nothing is totally shocking but yes we provide all those things which is what when people get involved and it doesn't have to be a corporate on our website. The amazon nation dot com individuals can get involved and then when it gets to the amount of supporting a village we jumping and all those people combined will support the village fantastic i. I'm looking through. Just this list of. I'm sort of jumping between one spot and another when i'm looking at the engaging dietitians you've got sore colleges you've got movement leaders. Can you talk a little bit. About what a movement later actually does and how they contribute to this. Well yes it came because most of us who are very privileged who went to primary school. You're in the developed countries for granted. Physical education is a normal part of a weekly routine. If not the daily routine you know running around the playground Other just free plying applying ballgames football basketball netball. I mean there's a plethora of choose from but we all know that if there's no physical activity you can't function the art movement later says in social movement. Ladies we're talking. He dedicated physical movement latest. So he because you know the upside of this is we rent village a house or property in the village where these ladies work and they come to work and the most that they have to walk. It's like one book and so these people have never moved actually out of the house. So there's so many new things that the nation provides in what i call fast tracking a poss- tracking the empowerment of women in villages absolutely. They say that the body works better when you move it. That's for sure. And certain in terms of villages quote court. You setting up villages. Is this a physical construct. In these new construction people involved had his part of it were well. We already have two. We had five villages going before covid And we've got to back up and going and you know. The autism nation came about especially because of covid to fast track. You know we we want one hundred villages actioning time and yes. That's how the villages work. Slow and steady wins the race right now given that you're stuck where you are. What's the communication channels lock. And how does that sort of work. In the artisan nation you regularly in communications has at a working war so my own..
The My Future Business™ Show
"danielle" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"Fantastic full of great content revealing a lot of the the problems but also a lot of the opportunities. Which is where i think this guy to be an organization that blossoms and just really touches so many women but not only the women directly but importantly their families. Can you talk to a little bit of how. There's a knock on effect by improving the quality of life for an individual little families. Yes so these women were raised to be totally compliant by two parents and a child who never goes to school so they have no outside. Influence whatsoever have arranged marriages and then the totally comp- haunt to the husband so these people have never learnt to think for themselves all by themselves and to have your thinking locked in prison. We alive is a crying shame. And you heard me say there's more than sixteen million people doing this. And if this was in a developed country the whole world would be screaming and outright if they thought their thinking was imprisoned like that so by coming to work and attaining regular work it nabil's will literally empowers these women it enables them to think it enables them to develop themselves. It changes everything about their relationship with the husband way that children are raised and most importantly it changes themselves. It helps them developed to their fullest potential their skills. They start to see things happen to themselves that they never even imagined that they knew that they had or could do or skills. I mean because you haven't been to school down by any stretch of the imagine just misses no opportunity so when these women realize what they can do. They're just in shock so this o esteemed grows enormously wonder how this given that they for the majority. I'm not saying all. But i suspect they might be the majority living in a subservient environment with that sort of culture is dominating when they empowered and start to realize their on strength and abilities and all these wonderful things..
The My Future Business™ Show
"danielle" Discussed on The My Future Business™ Show
"It's rick i'm your host and today do i have somebody very very special lined up for you. I have on the line. The incomparable daniel chill working to the show. Danielle thank you can. Hello hello twenty one. Oh yes tom we were talking about. How quickly time does flaw. You know we've been dealing with certain things in the last year. Which i'm pretty sure we all familiar with a little bit about and it's quite it's one of those years at I don't think many people were too upset to see the tile end of but putting that the of now i what he's on the show this year we're going to be talking about our daniels. Businesses by coco and the.