There have been rumours that disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was romantically involved with the CEO of failing cryptocurrency startup Alameda Research, a 28-year-old woman named Caroline Ellison. Ellison is under scrutiny for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being the company’s implosion.
CoinDesk published a bombshell report claiming that Ellison and Bankman-Fried were behind the schemes at FTX and Alameda as part of a “cabal of housemates” operating out of a “luxury flat” in the Bahamas. These people were behind the schemes at both businesses. On Monday, around 130 subsidiaries of FTX Group, including Alameda, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Some of Fried’s housemates at Bankman are reportedly friends of his from his time at MIT and at the quantitative trading business Jane Street.
Members of the inner circle “are, or used to be, hooked up in intimate relationships with each other,” according to the findings of the study. The report added that the 10 insiders’ connections went beyond professional ties.
Representative Caroline Ellison
An anonymous “cabal of housemates” allegedly ran both FTX and Alameda.
Ellison and Bankman-Fried dated on and off while they ran the now-defunct cryptocurrency enterprise, the value of which dropped from an estimated $32 billion at its peak to nearly $0 as a result of a rapid collapse. Despite this, the worth of the empire did not decrease.
The operation was reportedly managed by a group of teenagers in the Bahamas, according to sources cited by CoinDesk. Someone with first-hand knowledge of the events relayed the details here.
An additional source told the website, “They’ll do everything for each other.”
Ellison, a native of Boston, earned a degree in economics from Stanford University and spent time as a trader on Jane Street before being involved with FTX and Alameda.
Social media users have started digging through Ellison’s past appearances, like her now-famous podcast episode from July 2020, as the firm implodes. In that visit, Ellison spoke about her early interest in the Harry Potter books and her enjoyment of LARPing, a game in which participants dress up as and portray fictional characters.
Representative Caroline Ellison
Social media users are searching the web for Caroline Ellison’s prior podcast appearances.
Tweeting about his childhood, Ellison says, “I was fairly fascinated with Harry Potter.” My parents read me the first book in the series when I was three years old. The second book in the series came out when I was five years old, and I didn’t want to wait for my parents to read it, so I read it on my own.
Ellison hasn’t tweeted since November 9 and has said nothing publicly about the company’s financial difficulties during that time.
Representative Caroline Ellison
Ellison attended Stanford University for his business education.
Current and former workers of FTX and Alameda who talked with CoinDesk described a situation in which Bankman-Fried and his circle of cronies virtually ran wild, with no control and considerable conflicts of interest that caused unease among personnel.
Along with Bankman-Fried, Ellison’s other “roommates” in the Bahamas included FTX co-founder Gary Wang and CTO Nishad Singh, as well as FTX Director of Engineering Nigel Scully.
Employees also alleged they were kept in the dark about what was happening at the top of the bitcoin companies as they spiralled towards bankruptcy.
One of CoinDesk’s sources claims that Gary, Nishad, and Sam have full access to the matching engine and all of the exchange’s cash. If they’d inserted their own numbers or shuffled the order, no one would have noticed. That’s something about which I’m not 100% certain.
Both Ellison and Bankman-Fried did not respond to CoinDesk’s requests for comment.
In order to better understand FTX’s stance, The Post has reached out to them. Seems like the website for Alameda Research is down for the count right now.
According to CoinDesk’s reporting, cryptocurrency hedge fund Alameda has made a sizable investment in FTT, a token issued by FTX. Since hearing this, FTX’s decline has accelerated.
Representative Caroline Ellison
In other words, Caroline Ellison has been absent from Twitter since November 9.
Reuters estimates that the loss of client assets from the collapse of FTX to be between $1 billion and $2 billion. The $10 billion in client funds allegedly “secretly moved” by Bankman-Fried from FTX to Alameda. Allegedly, the business utilised this cash to pay for its risky dealings.
Bankman-Fried “disagreed with the categorisation,” as he told Reuters, of the $10 billion in cash that was moved.
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According to Bankman-Fried, there was no secret money transfer. We made a mistake because the internal labelling wasn’t clear.
Bankman-Fried recently made headlines when he said he would be selling his $40 million penthouse at the exclusive Albany resort in the Bahamas.
Though some insiders suggest that every member of the FTX management team owns a house in the complex, the precise number of homes that will be put up for sale in the coming days remains unknown.
The Albany Club, the Bahamas’ most exclusive resort community where A-listers like Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake are regulars, has also been a target of the probe.
Models Sam Bankman-Fried and Gisele Bundchen
Sam Bankman-Fried lost everything in the collapse of FTX.
Partner at Albany, Jason Callender, said a few years ago that the neighbourhood was designed to attract “a new breed of global elite.”
A member of the Albany Club, Sam Bankman, whose company Fried’s “FTX” filed for bankruptcy, was informed of the news over the weekend through email from the club’s general manager, Damien Michelmore. In the same email, residents were told to avoid discussing the incident with the media.
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