FTX’s Director of Engineering Nishad Singh was the latest member of the ‘inner circle’ to testify in the trial of the former CEO of the defunct crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), which continued on October 16. Like other close associates, Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, who had testified, Singh gave explicit details into SBF’s alleged wrongdoings. 

Sam Bankman-Fried Was At The Helm Of Everything

As had been done with Ellison and Wang, the first thing the prosecution did was to ascertain from the witness whether or not he had partaken in the crimes he was about to testify about. Singh admitted guilt relating to his involvement in fraud and campaign finance violations alongside SBF, Ellison, and Wang. 

He went on to buttress everything that had been said so far by other witnesses. Firstly, he stated that while Sam Bankman-Fried and Wang were in charge of the exchange, it was solely the former who handled endorsement deals, with Singh stating that the deals all added up to $1.3 billion. 

Singh also confirmed that Sam Bankman-Fried was “ultimately” in charge of Alameda even when Sam Trabucco and Ellison took over as CEO. As to how he knew or why he made such an assertion, he alluded to how SBF “unilaterally” spent the trading firm’s money and, at one point, threatened to fire Ellison (confirming Alameda’s ex-CEO testimony that SBF had the power to fire her).

While confirming his role in the creation of the bug, which concealed the correct accounting for the exchange’s account, Singh stated that Alameda’s negative balance grew to $8 billion, as the FTX engineer had overheard from a conversation between Wang and Adam Yedidia about it. 

He elaborated on how this was possible as there was an “allow negative” flag that allowed a negative balance for Alameda. However, Singh suggested that he wasn’t aware the feature was going to be used for that purpose at the time of creation, as he believed that it was for getting FTX the ability to get back the locked forms of FTT (The exchange’s utility token).

Facts About FTX Campaign Finance Violations

Before now, Judge Kaplan had ruled that the prosecution could adduce evidence relating to SBF’s alleged campaign finance scheme as it was “direct evidence of the charged offenses.” With this in mind, the prosecution went on to elicit facts about this from Singh’s testimony.

In responding to questions regarding the campaign donations, Singh confirmed that he was a straw donor and that the money donated came from Alameda (which actually happened to be customers’ funds). According to him, Sam Bankman-Fried spearheaded these donations with his brother Gabriel and former FTX executive Ryan Salame in on it, too. 

Singh noted that his involvement in it was minimal as they simply used his bank account to channel these funds to political candidates, and all he mainly did was sign off on those checks. 

SBF’s trial is set to continue on October 17 with the cross-examination of Singh. Meanwhile, the prosecution stated that they should be done with most of their witnesses this week, with only one or two expected to take the stand next week.