Court Evidence: SBF Accuses Binance of Leaking Balance Sheet to CoinDesk in Internal Memo
Newly presented court evidence showcases claims made by Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) in an internal memo, where he accused Binance of leaking an Alameda Research balance sheet to CoinDesk, a key incident related to the FTX collapse.
Because Bitcoin
October 12, 2023
The Block reported that evidence presented during Sam Bankman-Fried's trial reveals that he held Binance accountable for leaking Alameda Research's balance sheet to CoinDesk, a pivotal event in the FTX collapse. Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison testified that Bankman-Fried had prepared a memo on November 6, 2022, outlining potential investors for a bailout.
In the memo, Bankman-Fried accused Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, of engaging in a PR campaign against them. He claimed they leaked the balance sheet, blogged about it, shared it with CoinDesk, and publicly announced the sale of $500 million worth of FTT tokens in response, while cautioning customers about FTX.
CoinDesk's November 2 report, citing the leaked balance sheet, was seen as a trigger for FTX's collapse, causing significant repercussions in the crypto industry.
In the same document, Bankman-Fried considered reaching out to Justin Sun, founder of TRON and advisor to Huobi exchange, but noted that Sun was close to CZ (Changpeng Zhao, Binance's founder). Bankman-Fried also listed several potential actions, including publishing a confident tweet thread, which Ellison confirmed he did.
The document also mentioned that, at that time, FTX was capitalized but not infinitely liquid. Ellison clarified that this meant FTX had only one-third of the $12 billion in client assets on the exchange, equivalent to $4 billion available for processing withdrawals.
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