Sam Bankman-Fried to Plead Not Guilty to Bribery, Campaign Finance Charges: Reuters

The state of crypto is presented by Tron connecting the world to the power of Cryptocurrency. So there are some new developments for FTX founder Sam Bakeman Fried. We've got coins, gold policy and regulation, managing editor Nick Day with the latest on that. He's also the editor of coins, the state of crypto newsletter, Nick. Good morning. So Sam Bakeman Fried has a status hearing at 11 a.m. this morning. What will that entail? Hey, good morning. Yeah. So uh this follows the revelation earlier this week that prosecutors are adding 1/13 charge to the indictment against him. This one for allegedly attempting to bribe Chinese government officials with about $40 million worth of crypto. Um He is apparently expected to plead not guilty. So uh I imagine that, you know, part of today's hearing will be that arraignment. They're gonna just go over. It's not just the new charge. There were also a couple of additional charges revealed a couple of months ago that I think are also getting arraigned. So Bedri is expected to plead not guilty to those. And um you know, the other main issue is I think they're gonna continue talking about discovery during the uh you know, unveiling of the new, in the new charge on Monday, prosecutors said that all the evidence they have is already in existing discovery documents. I imagine that's going to be discussed and debated a little bit. Um But so far it seems like uh things are still on track for a trial in October and be free. He's uh what, what's he playing today? Uh Yeah, it does appear he's been uh blocked from playing uh league legends or other games. The agreed revised bail conditions have, you know, a very limited number of websites that he is able to access coin has concluded. Um So he now uh under the revised bail conditions, he's uh only able to access a single phone, a single laptop that have monitoring software on them. Uh and that are, you know, set up such as to restrict access to, you know, most of the internet. Yeah. Well, I guess what I was getting at there, there, there is another Reuters report uh this morning saying that he's likely to plead not guilty to uh the latest uh charges charge against him. And this comes after Forbes also dropped a report yesterday about how Sam Big MRI is paying for his legal defense uh through money gifted to his father. What, what can you tell us about that? Yeah. So this was a Forbes report yesterday coin because I think so far been unable to corroborate but uh Forbes, citing sources familiar with the situation uh reported yesterday that a couple of years ago, bank been freed, gifted uh you know, millions of dollars to his father. And those funds are now reportedly being used to uh support his defense. Um We do know that, you know, Joe Bank Bank father has said in the past that he would be using his personal resources to uh you know, bolstered uh banks defense, um you know, paying to lawyers and such. Uh but he didn't provide a lot of detail at the time. So, um apparently this is part of what it could be if this were, I mean, if he likes video games, this could be like it's starting to read like Grand Theft Auto Nerd City or something. I mean, this is just real fast paced. Oh, just one other thing Nick. So, ok, is saying that it has identified $115 million in digital as belonging to FTX and Alameda research. What are they doing with it? Yeah. So, uh last night, Okx announced that it would be, it would be turning over these funds. Um What we don't know is, you know what exactly these funds are in. So we don't know if it's like a specific crypto if it's multiple crypto. And uh we also don't know what the valuation is from. So whether that is current prices, whether that's prices from, you know, November 2022 when FTX actually collapsed. Um, but either way the FTX bankruptcy estate has announced that, uh, you know, it doesn't have a lot of the money it's supposed to have. So this will, I imagine help, uh, both the people who are trying to, you know, uh wind down the estate and send funds back to customers as well as the customers themselves who, uh, you know, may have a little bit more now that they can recover. All right, Nick, thanks for the update. That was Quin managing editor of Global Policy and Regulation. Nick Day. Don't forget to sign up for the state of crypto newsletter on coins dot com.