Sam Bankman-Fried and his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison are seen in a photo together for the first time after his FTX crypto exchange imploded and he blamed her for its downfall.
The picture obtained from March 2021, which shows SBF, 30, front and center of a group picture with his arm around Ellison, 28, as men in curly wigs – believed to be mocking his signature hairstyle – pose around them.
The photo was taken at SBF’s 29th birthday party at the exclusive club The Crown in Hong Kong.
They’re pictured with FTX co-founder Gary Wang and other executives. Ellison was the CEO of Alameda, the crypto investment firm owned by Bankman-Fried, that prosecutors say was used to funnel billions of dollars through as a ‘personal piggy bank’ for the disgraced founder.
FTX reportedly lent Alameda billions in clients’ money without their knowledge or permission. The crisis at FTX was triggered when customers rushed to withdraw their funds but the company couldn’t pay out.
The former couple lived in a $40million penthouse at the southern tip of New Providence, the main island in the Bahamas.
They and eight others shared a ‘polycule’ made up of his inner circle of FTX and Alameda executives.
As well as the picture of the couple together, videos have resurfaced in which Ellison appears to ramble while describing her work as CEO handling billions of dollars.
In one clip she discusses options for yield farming, a method of earning rewards by depositing cryptocurrency into a pool with others.
‘A big argument around June and July was ”Should we even do yield farming at all?” And I was kind of like, ”Oh I don’t know. This whole thing seems like weird. And aren’t there risks? And what if these platforms get hacked?” And it’s such a big pain operationally.’
Ellison’s FTX founder ex was taken into custody in the Bahamian capital Nassau after being secretly indicted by a grand jury in New York.
In a warning Tuesday, Damian Williams, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said more charges would be filed in the coming days and weeks.
‘We are not done,’ he said in unequivocal terms, warning that this week’s announcement of charges against Bankman-Fried were just the ‘first’ step.
Bankman-Fried is the only one to be charged so far. Ellison and others, including Wang and Nishad Singh, 27, FTX’s fired director of engineering, who are both said to have made billions through crypto, have yet to learn whether they may face legal action.
They are all now lying low in the wake of the bombshell charges by both federal prosecutors in New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
But just days before SBF’s arrest, Ellison was spotted in New York City at a coffee shop.
Caroline Ellison hasn’t been heard from in public since Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas.
Bankman-Fried maintains that the American branch of his crypto-trading platform, FTX US, is solvent and that he would be able to pay ‘everyone back’ who lost money on the international arm, FTX International, if the government unfroze his assets.
The company however filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year which would suggest there is no money.
He claims he was forced into it. On Tuesday, a judge in Nassau ordered that the FTX founder be held without bail while he fights extradition to the United States on a range of charges that include securities and wire fraud.
