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- Roberts pleaded with the Judge to have SBF released on a $250k bail and monitored electronically.
- The FTX collapse and SBF investigations have put centralized exchanges – including Binance, OKX, and Coinbase – on global transparency checks.
After a grand jury in the U.S. indicted FTX founder SBF last Friday and an arrest warrant was executed on Monday, Bahamian Judge Ferguson-Pratt has ruled the suspect be denied bail until February next year when an extradition case will be held. Meanwhile, SBF will remain under the custody of Bahamian law enforcement at the Fox Hill prison.
“I am of the view that the flight risk is so great that Mr Bankman-Fried ought to be remanded to custody,” she said.
However, SBF lead lawyer Jerome Roberts argued that his client should not be seen as a flight threat, as he was in the country with his passport for three weeks before the arrest. Therefore, Roberts pleaded with the Judge to have SBF released on a $250k bail and monitored electronically.
“I hope Mr Bankman-Fried doesn’t crucify me for saying this,” Roberts said. “But given the circumstances, perhaps $250,000? But your honor doesn’t have to agree with me. If $50,000 is a good figure, then $50,000 is a good figure.”
According to U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, the SBF and FTX case is being investigated by the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Bigger Picture of SBF Arrest on Wider Crypto Market
The FTX collapse and SBF investigations have put centralised exchanges – including Binance, OKX, and Coinbase – on global transparency checks. As such, cryptocurrency traders have been seen migrating en masse from CEXs to DEXs in the recent past. Moreover, the risk of holding crypto assets on centralized exchanges has significantly increased despite the availability of reserve data.
The collaboration of several jurisdictions to combat cryptocurrency-enhanced crimes has, however, sparked hope of Bitcoin and digital asset survival. Moreover, existing crypto companies and their leaders will trend more carefully with customers’ funds. Thus reducing the over rug pulls in the cryptocurrency industry.
Notably, Bitcoin price closed Tuesday on a bullish note after fear of a possible decline before the 2023 kickstart. As such, a Christmas crypto rally is highly probable, which could see Bitcoin price trade above $20k in January 2023.
Nevertheless, the effects of FTX implosion could reverberate in the coming weeks as other companies report their FTT exposure.
Twitter, which was recently acquired by Elon Musk, is likely to be used in the SBF trial case as he regularly posted on his account. For instance, in his latest tweet, SBF argued that the FTX US entity is completely solvent and customers should access their money.
2) I will try to be helpful during the hearing, and to shed what light I can on:
–FTX US's solvency and American customers
–Pathways that could return value to users internationally
–What I think led to the crash
–My own failings
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 9, 2022
Nonetheless, holders of the FTT token including Mr. Wonderful are not likely to receive compensation any time soon.
