FTX collapse (2022): Cooperating pleas begin

The criminal theory, which the jury accepted, was that statements about segregation and risk were false and that the misuse of customer property was a scheme to obtain and keep money. This page does not reconstruct internal transfer mechanics. On 2 November 2022 CoinDesk published a piece on Alameda's balance sheet that made the concentration of FTT token and related assets a public fact. Changpeng Zhao of Binance announced an intent to sell FTT. Withdrawals surged.

A proposed Binance acquisition collapsed after diligence. FTX entities filed Chapter 11 on 11 November. Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on 12 December 2022 and later extradited to the United States. Ellison (Alameda's last CEO), Wang (a co-founder), and Singh (a senior engineer) pleaded guilty in 2022-2023 and testified or were available to the government. Their pleas removed much of the 'who knew' mystery before opening statements.

The October-November 2023 trial lasted about a month. The jury convicted on all seven counts. A second superseding set of charges had been deferred and was later dropped as unnecessary after the verdict. Ray's estate sold investments, litigated, and built a claims process. By 2024-2025 public estate reports described recoveries that, in nominal dollars, could cover a very large share of allowed customer claims -- a result many November 2022 headlines did not expect.