Who's rooting hardest for a Sam Bankman-Fried conviction?
cryptocurrency firm, Ikigai Asset Management, lost most of its assets from last year's collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, where he was a customer.
Kling said he harbored no hatred for Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX's founder. But as Bankman-Fried's criminal fraud trial kicks off Tuesday, Kling is eager to see the onetime crypto mogul — who is now viewed as its biggest villain — held accountable for his actions.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteNorthwestern UniversityKellogg Post Graduate Certificate in Product ManagementVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Professional Certificate in Digital MarketingVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Professional Certificate in Product ManagementVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Digital Marketing and AnalyticsVisit «That will be cathartic for the crypto ecosystem,» Kling said.
Eleven months after FTX's implosion sent an already declining cryptocurrency market into a doom spiral, Bankman-Fried's trial is set to reopen wounds that have barely had time to heal in the crypto industry. As painful as it may be to relive FTX's downfall, the industry is united in its zeal to see Bankman-Fried held to account.
«Sam should get convicted because he's a criminal,» said Sheila Warren, CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, a lobbying group. «The industry supports that because a lot of people felt burned by him.»
The distancing is partly a matter of self-interest. Bankman-Fried's trial is seen as a referendum on the crypto industry, which has struggled for more than a decade to shake its associations with lawlessness and fraud.
And it may be convenient to point fingers at the FTX founder, even as some in the industry benefited from his rise.
