Crypto-currency con artist Sam Bankman-Fried will waive his extradition rights, paving the way to return him to the U.S. from the Bahamian jail he was remanded to
Bankman-Fried was indicted in New York on federal charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and money laundering. If sentenced, he could face the rest of his life in prison.
The FTX exchange founder also faces charges lodged by each the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission containing allegations that he defrauded customers of billions of dollars since 2019, by using customer money to engage in trading through Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund that lost billions of dollars.
Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund was largely funded by self-issued coins from the cryptocurrency exchange he founded.
Even though they are two separate businesses, Alameda had $14.6 billion of assets primarily consisting of FTT tokens issued by FTX, another Bankman-Fried company.
Cryptocurrency is an electronic version of money issued by private companies without any asset support.
Fiat money, a type of currency that is not backed by any commodity such as gold or silver. Since President Richard Nixon suspended U.S. dollar convertibility to gold in 1971, a system of national fiat currencies has been used globally.
Digital currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are different because they are not issued by a government with monetary authority.
Warnings issued by many countries suggest that cryptocurrencies create opportunities for illegal activities, such as money laundering and terrorism, but
Cryptocurrency is a type of virtual currency that uses cryptography to secure transactions that are digitally recorded on a distributed ledger, such as a blockchain.
A transaction involving cryptocurrency that is recorded on a distributed ledger is referred to as an “on-chain” transaction; a transaction that is not recorded on the distributed ledger is referred to as an “off-chain” transaction.