With $100K To His Name, FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Will Be Released On $250M Bail

A New York federal judge approved a bond agreement prepared by federal prosecutors and Sam Bankman-Fried's attorneys Thursday that will see the FTX founder released on a $250-million bond.

Bankman-Fried will need "strict" supervision after being released to his parents' California home, according to Judge Gabriel Gorenstein.

The equity in their house would be used to partially meet the requirements of his bail. Bankman-Fried would be handed over to his parents' care as part of the discharge.

Bankman-Fried had previously asserted that he merely had $100,000 in funds left after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange. 

After his extradition from the Bahamas was approved on Wednesday, Bankman-Fried was taken to the United States by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and appeared in court in New York to face his U.S. criminal charges for the first time.

Allegations of fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations are the crux of the case in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. 

The Legal Backdrop: Prosecutors had been closing in on the disgraced crypto leader, striking plea agreements within the FTX inner circle. 

U.S. prosecutors and authorities announced late Wednesday that Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of FTX's sister business Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, the other co-founder of FTX, had pleaded guilty to federal charges and confessed guilt in securities offenses.

The prosecution's case against Bankman-Fried is expected to hinge on the cooperation of Ellison and Wang, who admitted actively participating in the company's deception.

They have acknowledged that senior management knew of illegal activity involving the transfer of customer monies between the two businesses.

In exchange, Ellison's plea agreement states that except for suspected tax offenses, she will not be subject to further criminal prosecution if she cooperates with the SDNY's investigation and any other law enforcement agency involved in the matter.

She was ordered to post a $250,000 bond for bail and surrender her passport.

Also read: 94% Of FTX's Blockfolio Buyout Was Paid Using FTT Crypto: Report

The accusations against Bankman-Fried's FTX associates shed more light on the unauthorized transfer of customer funds between FTX and Alameda, the trading company he also founded, as they detailed how the senior executives inflated the apparent value of the FTX Coin FTT/USD, the exchange's native token, for personal gains.

Additionally, enforcement cases against Ellison and Wang were resolved by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

FTT has been identified as a security in the SEC complaint, which was another salvo in the industry's dispute with the securities regulator.

In a statement released late on Wednesday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said that Ellison and Bankman-Fried "schemed to manipulate the price of FTT, an exchange crypto security token that was integral to FTX, to prop up the value of their house of cards."

Next: Former Binance CFO Predicts Long Crypto Winter Following FTX Failure

Photo: Courtesy of Bybit from flickr.