Former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison testified in court, providing more details about the financial crimes she and her ex-boyfriend, Sam Bankman-Fried, committed at FTX. Ellison revealed that FTX bribed the Chinese government with $100 million in order to unlock a larger pool of frozen assets. The bribery occurred after other attempts to recover funds had failed. The exchange conspired with two individuals with insider connections to the Chinese government, one of whom claimed to have a method to unfreeze the $1 billion in seized funds. Bankman-Fried insisted on using this method, despite objections. The Department of Justice initially charged Bankman-Fried with bribery and campaign finance violations, but these charges were later dropped. Ellison also disclosed that Bankman-Fried was focused on media presentations and cultivating his image as an eccentric founder. He had investments in media sites and frequently met with author Michael Lewis. Additionally, Ellison revealed that Alameda had taken $10 billion from FTX customers through a line of credit, and Bankman-Fried instructed her to conceal this information on their balance sheet when Genesis, a trading firm, requested an updated view. Ellison produced multiple versions of the balance sheet, but Bankman-Fried chose one that did not reveal their $9.9 billion deficit.

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Information	Details
Geography	Asia
Countries	🇨🇳 🇺🇸 🇧🇸
Sentiment	neutral
Relevance Score	0
People	Ryan Salame, David Ma, Caroline Ellison, Michael Lewis, Sam Bankman-Fried
Companies	FTX, David Ma, DOJ, Snapchat, Vox, Forbes, Bahamas, Genesis, Binance Futures, Binance, PrimeXBT, Chinese government, Semafor, Alameda Research, Inner City Press, CNBC
Currencies	Million, The 1% Club, $10 billion, FintruX
Securities	None