Disgraced Former FTX CEO ‘Sam Bankman-Fraud’ Arrested

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested Monday in the Bahamas based on charges filed in the US. The federal charges against Sam include eight different charges unsealed Tuesday morning. Some charges include multiple counts of wire fraud and conspiracy related to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange.

While Sam Bankman-Fried played dumb in recent live interviews claiming that he didn’t realize there was such a large volume of customer funds being funnelled into his own private investment firm, negligence still is not an excuse in the eyes of the law. An FTX insider, Co-CEO Ryan Salame, even turned on Sam days before the company’s bankruptcy filing, where he flagged potential fraud to regulators.

After defrauding FTX investors of almost $2 billion, the SEC had this to say in a tweet:

Today we charged FTX Trading Ltd CEO and co-founder Samuel Bankman-Fried with orchestrating a scheme to defraud equity investors. Investigations as to other securities law violations and into other entities and persons relating to the alleged misconduct are ongoing.

— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) December 13, 2022

What Happens Now?

Canada officially banned crypto leverage and margin trading after the FTX collapse. Authorities in Canada are taking measures to better protect Canadian cryptocurrency investors in the aftermath of the FTX collapse.

On December 13th, The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) issued an update to crypto trading platforms operating in the country. The CSA said that the authority has officially been reinforcing its approach to the supervision of crypto trading platforms by expanding existing requirements. Now, trading firms within Canada and foreign trading firms must comply with these newly expanded terms, banning them from offering margin or leverage trading services to any Canadian clients.

The CSA had this to say in a statement:

“Custodians will generally be considered qualified if they are regulated by a financial regulator in Canada, the U.S., or a similar jurisdiction with a supervisory regime for conduct and financial regulation.”

The council emphasized that even with adopting these measures, crypto assets or any financial products related to crypto assets are high-risk investments, urging investors only to invest using a platform registered with CSA members. Next, even Binance withdrawals jumped $3 billion in 24 hours.

It’s not all bad news for crypto in the headlines recently. Information about PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) recently came out about the company working with Crypto Wallet MetaMask to offer an easy way to buy crypto. PayPal’s partnership with blockchain tech amplifies the ups and downs of the cryptocurrency sector. Although the crypto blockchain is a newer technology and may have risks, it also may be here to stay despite that.

Bitcoin (BTC) is currently trading at $17,393.00, up +0.25% on the day. YTD, BTC stock is down -63.56%.

Read Next: Start of 2023 Sees Bitcoin Price Skyrocket

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Disclaimer: Wealthy VC does not hold a position in any of the stocks, ETFs or cryptocurrencies mentioned in this article.