Sam Bankman-Fried charged with securities fraud tracing back to the inception of FTX

About twelve hours after we learned authorities in the Bahamas have arrested FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed the first of multiple sets of criminal charges he’ll face.

The SEC complaint accuses Bankman-Fried of executing a “years-long fraud” while diverting customers’ funds from FTX to his crypto trading firm, Alameda Research, then spending some of the funds on investments, real estate, and political donations. These charges specifically cite the more than $1.8 billion FTX received from equity investors since 2019, which includes $1.1 billion from investors in the US.

According to the complaint, FTX was a fraud from the very beginning: “From the inception...

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