The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried of leaking the private diary of ex-Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison to the New York Times. The accusation leads to the DOJ seeking a ban on all out-of-court statements made by witnesses and other parties in the case. "The Hash" panel discusses the latest allegations and whether it will hurt Bankman-Fried in court.
How could we forget the FTX stuff? So the DOJ has accused former FTX CEO Sam Bagman Fried of leaking the private diary of elevator research, Ceo Caroline Ellison to the New York Times. This comes after the New York Times published an article that had Ellison's private thoughts, her private leading to the Doj seeking a ban on all out of court statements made by witnesses and other parties in the case. They're saying this could taint the jury and so will I'm gonna pass it off to you. What do you make of this? I think the New York Times article came out yesterday. Uh What do you think juicy stuff? Right. A coin was the one that also did the breakup story. Uh Afterwards of Ellison and Sam Bare who were apparently dating part of this weird group of people living in the Bahamas together in apartment trading crypto. And perhaps more than that. Uh So there's definitely some like romantic activities between all these people and the fact that he went so far to discredit her as revealing her private diary. Uh It definitely means that that relationship is over. Um We also know that like this could harm him in court because now they're trying to get him to, uh they're clamping down on him and saying, like, you can't be talking to the media, you can't be talking to the press and they're pressing forward with that trying to make sure that he can't speak to anyone else. Uh And why is that? Well, tampering with a witness has against him. Ellison and a lot of the other executives at FTX, former executives have turned States Witness by where they're going to the justice department and being like, hey, this is what's going on. Sam Bare did not do that. He has pleaded not guilty at this time. So waiting for uh those proceedings to occur in October and this could be key information for both sides here. Uh But I think it's just part of a larger thing that SBF as much as he's sitting in his parents' basement and now he still wants to be in the light and that's why he's talking to the New York Times reporters back man. Season three of FTX. It's just, it's just crazy. You can't write this stuff. I mean, you just, you couldn't do, you couldn't make this up like past the past relationship, the past twist being just so violated here with the leaking of a private diary like this. It's just the twists and turns in this, uh in this case are unending, never fails to surprise. There's always some new piece of minutia that makes this alleged fraud, probably one of the most notable, interesting and very sort of 21st century social media stories of all time, right? You got all this stuff that's unfolding in real time. All these crazy plot twists that are somewhat Shakespearean, somewhat, you know, Netflix Studios, right? Like it's just, it's just wild when this all gets distilled into uh its its inevitable movie form, there will be plenty of real material to draw from that many viewers will say no way you made that up. That can't be based in reality when in fact, it is, that's just how crazy this story is. We're gonna talk about more about that in a bit but Jen, I saw your hand, I'm gonna throw it your way. What are your thoughts on this one? Yeah. In all of the developments that come out about Sam Bakeman fried his actions since the collapse of FTX, I keep asking myself, is this calculated or is it driven by emotion? And I still can't really figure it out, you know, leaking this document to the New York Times could be a very calculated move to manipulate media coverage 13th of jury or it could just be an emotional move because he doesn't know what to do next. He wants to stay in the spotlight and he wants the New York Times to cover this story. So I just would love to get inside the brain of Sam Baman fried. I don't know. Maybe, maybe one day he'll come on the hash and we get to ask him all of the burning questions. Join us again, Jen. Yeah, he was on the, it's true. One day, maybe he can rejoin us on the hash. You know, the New York Times article quotes some of the diary excerpts here. Um, as Elson feeling unhappy and overwhelmed with her job. There's one quote in the article that says at the end of the day, I can't wait to go home and turn off my phone and have a drink and get away from it all. So you have to just wonder what was kind of going on behind the scenes even way before the um implosion of FTX happened. It sounds like it wasn't a very um happy place. It wasn't a very organized place. It sounds like absolute chaos, Zach. Yeah, we heard some of this in, you know, public statements by Brett Harrison, right, who is the chief of FTX US. And I think his telling is that, you know, dating back to, you know, spring of 22 right before things hit the fan in November all the way back in April, like the uh the tensions were starting to boil over in which uh according to his telling, at least he and other key executives on the team started seeing sandbag and fried's behavior as increasingly erratic and um increasingly leading to arguments and outright fights. Uh among, among the crew, right? Not, not physical fights, I should note but just uh you know, back and forth that were less than pleasant. So, um yeah, you do get uh a bit more of a of a picture of the dysfunction that we've heard about from within the FTX Empire through some of these, these uh these highlights that are uh exerted in the Times piece. It is just uh you know, wild to see that more details. Keep uh emerging from what again remains a very compelling, fascinating Shakespearean story of, of uh of downfall and uh of crazy craziness. But yeah, wild stuff, the trail was on. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was just gonna say the trial is starting in October and we should remind the audience that Ellison is a star witness against SPF Will. The last thing I was just gonna say to add on to what I said, uh even before the Brett Harrison things, there was stuff going back to 2018 and 2019 when Alameda research was getting off the ground, right? There was like a key split at that time. A lot of people saying that Sam Bari's behavior was domineering uh and just led to a a dissolution of a lot of the early key team members. People don't know that because it was a firm that no one really cared about at the time, but it went on to become FDX Behemoth that's working Super Bowl commercials. And now we have this entire downfall playing out near and then one day, certainly Netflix.
Learn more about Consensus 2024, CoinDesk’s longest-running and most influential event that brings together all sides of crypto, blockchain and Web3. Head to coindesk.consensus.com to register and buy your pass now.