BlockBeats news, according to The Block, FTX co-founder Gary Wang testified in the SBF trial that in November 2022, FTX’s customer balances were equal to the assets held in the hot wallet, with one important exception: a wallet named "fiat@" hides $8 billion in liabilities. As customers began withdrawing assets from FTX in November 2022, SBF asked Gary Wang to calculate how much money Alameda Research would need to deposit on the exchange to cover outflows.
Wang, who testified under direct examination by government prosecutors on the fourth day of last week's SBF trial, said that excluding Alameda Research's accounts, the sum of FTX customer balances matched the assets in FTX hot wallets. But, unbeknownst to him, there was a problem with his calculations. He testified that he was given the full picture only when the SBF asked him whether he had included "our Korean friends" in the calculations.
Confused, Wang checked with another former FTX executive, Nishad Singh, who told Wang that the "Korean friends" were actually referring to the $8 billion "fiat@" vulnerability at the heart of FTX's collapse. The fiat@ account balance in FTX's internal database has been reassigned to an account named "seoyuncharles88@gmail.com" which has been granted special privileges so that Alameda Research does not have to pay interest on the credit line. Wang also confirmed that SBF knew that FTX’s financials were more transparent to the public and investors, while Alameda’s financials were not.
Wang, who testified under direct examination by government prosecutors on the fourth day of last week's SBF trial, said that excluding Alameda Research's accounts, the sum of FTX customer balances matched the assets in FTX hot wallets. But, unbeknownst to him, there was a problem with his calculations. He testified that he was given the full picture only when the SBF asked him whether he had included "our Korean friends" in the calculations.
Confused, Wang checked with another former FTX executive, Nishad Singh, who told Wang that the "Korean friends" were actually referring to the $8 billion "fiat@" vulnerability at the heart of FTX's collapse. The fiat@ account balance in FTX's internal database has been reassigned to an account named "seoyuncharles88@gmail.com" which has been granted special privileges so that Alameda Research does not have to pay interest on the credit line. Wang also confirmed that SBF knew that FTX’s financials were more transparent to the public and investors, while Alameda’s financials were not.