Jury Decides SBF's Fate

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the now defunct cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, was found guilty yesterday of misappropriating billions in investor funds. The company's collapse last November shocked investors and marked a low point in the so-called "crypto winter."

Bankman-Fried, commonly referred to by the acronym SBF, was accused of defrauding customers by using billions of their deposits to cover losses at his investment firm, Alameda Research. The scheme led to the abrupt devaluation of the company's proprietary token (see timeline) and the evaporation of almost $32B in value on the exchange.

The 31-year-old MIT graduate will be sentenced March 28 and faces a maximum of 115 years in jail (though the sentence is likely to be far less). Bankman-Fried took the stand in his own defense—a strategy that experts say may have harmed him after he came off as defensive upon cross-examination.