Crypto Critics' Corner

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Episode 139 – It’s so over: Sam Bankman-Fried testifies (feat. Sam Kessler)

It's so over: Sam Bankman-Fried testifies (feat. Sam Kessler) – Crypto Critics' Corner

Bennett and Cas are joined by Sam Kessler from CoinDesk to discuss the witnesses that the defense has been calling to the stand, including Sam Bankman-Fried. CoinDesk trial coverage: https://www.coindesk.com/sam-bankman-fried-trial-live-coverage-news/ Protos trial coverage: https://protos.com/sbftrial/ SBF's Kamikaze Defense: https://protos.com/sam-bankman-frieds-kamikaze-defense/ The Jury Finally Hears from SBF by Liz Lopatto: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/27/23935683/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-fraud-direct-testimony-jury This episode was recorded on October 28th, 2023.

Cas Piancey and Bennett Tomlin are joined by Sam Kessler of CoinDesk to discuss Sam Bankman-Fried’s ongoing testimony.

This episode was recorded on October 28th, 2023.

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English Transcript:

00:00:05:04 - 00:00:06:11
Cas Piancey
Welcome back, everyone. I

00:00:06:11 - 00:00:11:10
Cas Piancey
am Cas Piancey, and I'm joined, as usual, by my partner in crime, Mr. Bennett Tomlin. How are you today?

00:00:11:10 - 00:00:12:20
Bennett Tomlin
I'm doing well. How are you,

00:00:12:20 - 00:00:13:07
Cas Piancey
Fine.

00:00:13:07 - 00:00:14:14
Cas Piancey
We're joined by a special guest

00:00:14:14 - 00:00:21:22
Cas Piancey
who has been at the courthouse in some way, shape or form the past week going and watching the Sam Bankman-Fried trial.

00:00:22:02 - 00:00:24:04
Cas Piancey
Sam Kessler from Coindesk, how are you?

00:00:24:04 - 00:00:29:16
Sam Kessler
Hello. Hello. Long time. First time. This is pretty cool. Thanks. Cass and Bennett?

00:00:29:16 - 00:00:31:11
Cas Piancey
we haven't recorded since

00:00:31:11 - 00:00:39:00
Cas Piancey
any of the defense's witnesses have taken the stand. So I wanted to get us kicked off with those individuals if we could.

00:00:39:00 - 00:00:39:10
Cas Piancey
And

00:00:39:10 - 00:00:42:13
Cas Piancey
what they were supposed to accomplish for the defense.

00:00:42:13 - 00:00:47:01
Cas Piancey
we were talking about the the I guess it was the data scientist guy.

00:00:47:01 - 00:00:48:03
Sam Kessler
Joseph Pimply.

00:00:48:03 - 00:00:55:13
Sam Kessler
So there was him and Krystal Rolle, who is a Bahamian attorney who worked for works for for Sam.

00:00:55:13 - 00:00:58:17
Cas Piancey
Yeah. Well let's start with let's start with family because it sounds boring

00:00:58:17 - 00:01:00:23
Cas Piancey
in terms of what he was sent there to accomplish actually.

00:01:01:03 - 00:01:04:12
Cas Piancey
Can you explain what his goal was for the defense.

00:01:04:12 - 00:01:06:07
Sam Kessler
sounds boring. And it was boring.

00:01:06:07 - 00:01:25:04
Sam Kessler
remarkably compared to the rest of this trial. But essentially, Pimbly is a, you know, data analyst who was hired on the behalf of Sam's team to kind of come in and assemble some documents that show I mean, it's hard to know exactly how they plan to use these document or, you know, these these these data.

00:01:25:06 - 00:01:43:21
Sam Kessler
But essentially charts showing that Alameda liquidity and FTX liquidity was at a certain level over the course of 2021 through 2022, the fall of the exchange that, you know, makes it look like there was more money on hand than, you know, what prosecutors would probably allege

00:01:43:21 - 00:02:04:12
Cas Piancey
Yeah, And we were all just kind of stunned at the prices this guy was able to get from the I guess, essentially the Bankman-Fried family. I would assume that that he was ultimately paying this man's bills. He did 73 hours of work or something and got paid $50,000, which is I think all of us are kind of just wishing we had rates like that.

00:02:04:12 - 00:02:05:23
Cas Piancey
unfortunately, it sounds like

00:02:05:23 - 00:02:06:21
Cas Piancey
he didn't

00:02:06:21 - 00:02:13:17
Cas Piancey
help win any hearts or minds in terms of people there or the jury. I would I would presume.

00:02:13:17 - 00:02:16:18
Sam Kessler
Yeah. I mean, it's hard to get into the mind of the jury,

00:02:16:18 - 00:02:24:12
Sam Kessler
but I mean, the way that this went was essentially he presented these documents and then the prosecution came up and

00:02:24:12 - 00:02:36:01
Sam Kessler
the main, I guess, thrust of the prosecution's questions or if you want to call it argument to the jury with their questions to him, was was essentially, hey, where did these numbers come from?

00:02:36:17 - 00:02:55:22
Sam Kessler
they came from Sam and his lawyers. So the database that you based all of your analysis on came directly from the client. And then there were, you know, several more questions after that. And I think they actually belabored that too much and might have actually lost some sway with with the jury as a result of that. You know, extensive questioning.

00:02:55:22 - 00:02:56:12
Cas Piancey
Yeah,

00:02:56:12 - 00:02:59:21
Cas Piancey
I know, I know. The second one was you mentioned Kristina Rolle.

00:02:59:21 - 00:03:01:04
Sam Kessler
know, so it's funny

00:03:01:04 - 00:03:02:13
Bennett Tomlin
It was Krystal Rolle.

00:03:02:13 - 00:03:06:03
Sam Kessler
Krystal Rolle it. Is Krystal, theree is a Christina Rolle and there is no relation.

00:03:06:03 - 00:03:07:13
Sam Kessler
And there was a point made.

00:03:07:13 - 00:03:12:23
Cas Piancey
please, Yeah, go ahead. What was that point? Because that was what I was going to say to what was the point that was made in court.

00:03:12:23 - 00:03:21:09
Sam Kessler
So, Christina Roll is a very important Bahamian regulator, kind of behind the country's embrace of crypto.

00:03:21:09 - 00:03:28:21
Sam Kessler
And Krystal roll is a unrelated, which she made very clear because we're all in her telling. It's a very common name. There

00:03:28:21 - 00:03:36:10
Sam Kessler
is an unrelated lawyer who works for Sam and accompanied him when he talked to the Securities Commission

00:03:36:10 - 00:03:37:15
Sam Kessler
of the Bahamas.

00:03:37:15 - 00:03:40:04
Sam Kessler
I think if I'm getting the name of the agency correctly.

00:03:40:04 - 00:03:40:11
Cas Piancey
Yeah.

00:03:40:11 - 00:04:00:14
Cas Piancey
And just to add some color, some color to what you just said is that from what I heard, Rolle is actually the most common Bahamian surname out there, like the first or second most common Bahamian surname, and which like I'm sure I don't know, that's just all of these weird little things that I'm that I'm fascinated by.

00:04:00:14 - 00:04:01:01
Sam Kessler
There were three

00:04:01:01 - 00:04:03:13
Sam Kessler
Rolles in her testimony alone.

00:04:03:15 - 00:04:05:00
Sam Kessler
That she had to distinguish.

00:04:05:00 - 00:04:07:19
Cas Piancey
so I heard that that also was a pretty unsuccessful

00:04:07:19 - 00:04:23:05
Cas Piancey
defense tactic in so far as her role in all of this was only post collapse, which kind of negates a bit of what she's saying and why it matters that.

00:04:23:05 - 00:04:25:02
Cas Piancey
Can you expand on that for me.

00:04:25:02 - 00:04:38:04
Sam Kessler
I mean, with a lot of this stuff, they're asking a lot of questions that are they being lawyers from both sides that can seem disjointed. And sometimes it's because they want to enter things into the record. Sometimes it's because they want to tee up other questions that they're going to ask

00:04:38:04 - 00:04:38:15
Sam Kessler
Sam,

00:04:38:15 - 00:04:41:14
Sam Kessler
during his testimony, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

00:04:41:16 - 00:05:04:00
Sam Kessler
And I think that her main goal was to corroborate the timeline and substance of his meetings with Bahamian regulators. One kind of contentious thing is just that, you know, Sam essentially froze a bunch of money or took a bunch of frozen money and gave it to, you know, the Bahamas to in a very, you know, bad summary of how that worked.

00:05:04:00 - 00:05:09:00
Sam Kessler
But, you know, it can seem like a sort of cynical thing that he was willing to kind of kowtow to the

00:05:09:00 - 00:05:18:00
Sam Kessler
Bahamians in order to, in the view of prosecutors, I'm sure, get preferential treatment there. But I think part of her goal, Krystal Rolles goal with her testimony

00:05:18:00 - 00:05:24:01
Sam Kessler
was to kind of communicate, hey, if he didn't do these things that the Bahamas wanted him to do,

00:05:24:01 - 00:05:27:04
Sam Kessler
he would have gone to prison or faced severe penalties.

00:05:27:04 - 00:05:32:11
Cas Piancey
I mean that gets us through the first the first expert witnesses. Do you have any more questions about the minute

00:05:32:11 - 00:05:35:19
Bennett Tomlin
know. My first question start on Bankman-Fried.

00:05:35:19 - 00:05:51:00
Cas Piancey
then let's jump into the the weird circumstances of you called it a mock trial. I mean, I, I guess I don't really it's all on record still, but it is without a jury present and everyone seemed a little stunned by that.

00:05:51:00 - 00:06:06:20
Sam Kessler
Essentially, without going into the legal details because, A, nobody wants to get super deep into that and be I don't understand it as a journalist, not a lawyer. You know, part of Sam's defense strategy rested on,

00:06:06:20 - 00:06:19:06
Sam Kessler
using his lawyers and the advice that he received from counsel while at FTX to kind of make the point that at least he if he didn't have bad counsel, that he at least was following the advice of counsel.

00:06:19:06 - 00:06:52:00
Sam Kessler
And that is a kind of important legal distinction. And they wanted to present essentially this evidence that right or wrong, he got counsel while he was at FTX and Alameda, and that's what he followed, which led him to think that certain business decisions that the prosecutors say were fraudulent were legal. And the judge, in deciding whether to admit this argument, this kind of argument into court, did this weird thing where he dismissed the jury and held a hearing, which essentially was like a mock trial, where Sam and his well, Sam was questioned by his lawyers.

00:06:52:02 - 00:07:12:15
Sam Kessler
They did their direct, you know, questioning and, you know, focused specifically on these sorts of questions, this weird legal gray area. And then he was also crossed, meaning the prosecutors got to question him as well, not in front of a jury, but he was still under oath. So it's kind of this confusing thing to help the judge ostensibly make a decision on what to admit.

00:07:12:15 - 00:07:23:10
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah, And I think the technical name for it is evidentiary hearing. I called it a mock trial because that's more evocative than evidentiary hearing. But we should probably be, you know, slightly more accurate.

00:07:23:10 - 00:07:40:13
Bennett Tomlin
And after this, the only piece that I believe was admissible from this advice of counsel defense was that Sam Bankman-Fried did receive advice from Daniel Friedberg on document retention, and that part was going to be allowed into the trial.

00:07:40:15 - 00:07:45:07
Bennett Tomlin
Did I appropriately understand the results of that evidentiary hearing?

00:07:45:07 - 00:08:06:23
Sam Kessler
Yeah, I think that's a fair summary. I mean, and a key thing, right? Backing up from the results is that Sam and his team really kind of threw Dan Friedberg. I mean, whether he threw himself under the bus or, you know, however you want to look at it, he was a huge focus of that section of testimony. And yeah, that might backfire.

00:08:06:23 - 00:08:16:05
Cas Piancey
It might have backfired for him. I this I wrote a piece yesterday or whenever it'll when this comes out, it'll be last week.

00:08:16:05 - 00:08:34:00
Cas Piancey
But I wrote a piece saying that this is the Sam Bankman-Fried kamikaze defense. And I think that like that is what that's what that, that evidentiary evidentiary hearing made me feel was like, this guy is going to and I just want to run through some of the things he said.

00:08:34:00 - 00:08:49:02
Cas Piancey
And you know, these aren't exact ways that he said them. But some of the things he said that I'm like, if regulators or three letter agencies want to deal with this, there might be something here for them. The first one that springs to mind

00:08:49:02 - 00:08:58:11
Cas Piancey
talked about Jane Street. And he said that they typically told employees to delete chats and use signal

00:08:58:11 - 00:08:59:20
Sam Kessler
The New York Times test.

00:08:59:20 - 00:09:06:04
Cas Piancey
I'm like, okay, well, that's probably not something Jane Street wants in court

00:09:06:04 - 00:09:07:10
Cas Piancey
from someone under oath.

00:09:07:10 - 00:09:14:16
Cas Piancey
Keep in mind that as as we're saying here like this, while there was no jury present, he still couldn't lie. This was essentially to get a

00:09:14:16 - 00:09:22:02
Bennett Tomlin
you can't legally lie. It's against the law for him to lie. And we know that if anything, Bankman-Fried loves the law.

00:09:22:02 - 00:09:25:05
Sam Kessler
mean, he can also forget. He can forget. And he did that

00:09:25:05 - 00:09:27:10
Cas Piancey
He's doing a great job of that.

00:09:27:10 - 00:09:28:19
Sam Kessler
remember on Monday.

00:09:28:23 - 00:09:29:21
Sam Kessler
So we'll see.

00:09:29:21 - 00:09:53:15
Cas Piancey
other thing I wanted to bring up was that he definitely threw Can Sun and Friedberg under the bus and tried to make it about them and how they were culpable and he wasn't culpable. They put the contracts in front of him, It wasn't his fault. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then definitely like trying to get Caroline, Gary, Nishad and all of his other coworkers involved in some way, shape or form.

00:09:53:15 - 00:10:10:01
Cas Piancey
I'm honestly a little surprised he didn't throw his parents under the bus at this point. But like it, it feels like anyone who has ever known he's looking to at least implicate them. If not, get off because of them. Right? Like, which is just I don't know. It's wild to see that play out in real life.

00:10:10:01 - 00:10:29:02
Sam Kessler
And it's a weird needle to thread, too, because it's like, hey, it's their fault. But also nothing was wrong and kind of trying to, you know, make both of those things true in a lot of these cases can prove difficult and at least vague and weird from the standpoint of a jury. I'd imagine

00:10:29:02 - 00:10:45:09
Bennett Tomlin
When they brought up Daniel Friedberg, the prosecution took a couple of different tacks in their attempt to suggest he was a less than stellar lawyer when he was hired by FTX. Do you have any thoughts on that particular part?

00:10:45:09 - 00:10:48:10
Sam Kessler
that's kind of why I mentioned that this could backfire

00:10:48:10 - 00:10:49:12
Sam Kessler
because

00:10:49:12 - 00:11:01:15
Sam Kessler
prosecutors ask the question or something to the effect of were you aware that Daniel Freberg was taking illegal narcotics with employees of Alameda? And FTX.

00:11:01:21 - 00:11:04:09
Cas Piancey
That was fucking crazy.

00:11:04:09 - 00:11:05:00
Sam Kessler
question.

00:11:05:02 - 00:11:06:14
Sam Kessler
Yeah, it was wild.

00:11:06:14 - 00:11:09:23
Sam Kessler
I mean, and there's other questions that kind of come up to that line

00:11:09:23 - 00:11:26:19
Cas Piancey
I want to add in here that while we're discussing this, the judge admonished Danielle Sassoon for saying that and said like, how like, kind of like, was just shocked that she had decided to bring this up. She knew better, essentially. And that clearly whether or not

00:11:26:19 - 00:11:34:14
Cas Piancey
that's true, which I'm not going to weigh in on, it didn't need to be a part of this trial.

00:11:34:16 - 00:11:42:15
Cas Piancey
So I just want to make sure that the audience understands that, that there was pushback on this and it wasn't just allowed to go into like evidence or whatever.

00:11:42:15 - 00:11:44:22
Sam Kessler
Yeah. I mean, I think it was almost like a warning to

00:11:44:22 - 00:12:07:06
Sam Kessler
to Sam and the judge. It's like, all right, if you want to kind of bring this in, you know, the gloves are off in this. I mean, one other thing that they said that was in my mind a little bit more substantive was and this is where the better Call Saul analogy comes in is they kind of try to bring up this narrative where Sam was looking for a lawyer who would kind of just give him a green flag for whatever he wanted to do.

00:12:07:06 - 00:12:21:17
Sam Kessler
There were questions like, you know, did you tell such and such that you didn't like lawyers or that, you know, if you had a lawyer, you wanted one, who would, you know, give you? You know, a green light for for whatever. And it kind of reminds me of the Breaking Bad thing where it's like, you know, do you want a lawyer or do you want a criminal lawyer?

00:12:21:22 - 00:12:22:16
Sam Kessler
A criminal lawyer.

00:12:22:16 - 00:12:28:06
Sam Kessler
Or a criminal lawyer? Not saying that you know at all. You know, this is in court. They're trying to.

00:12:28:06 - 00:12:28:21
Sam Kessler
Make arguments.

00:12:28:21 - 00:12:31:03
Sam Kessler
Paint pictures, and not saying that's at all what happened.

00:12:31:03 - 00:12:34:04
Sam Kessler
Here. But they did kind of invoke a similar sort of a.

00:12:34:06 - 00:12:36:14
Sam Kessler
You know, refrain in that testimony

00:12:36:14 - 00:12:55:16
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. And they did also take their time during the questioning to mention Daniel Freedbierg's previous role at Excapsa the parent company and software provider for like Ultimate bet during the entire God mode scandal where people there could see the cards of people playing in the games allowing poker players to cheat.

00:12:55:16 - 00:13:17:10
Bennett Tomlin
For the record, Daniel Friedberg is not the only prominent cryptocurrency lawyer to work at Excapsa during that period with their Chief Compliance Officer being one, Stuart Hoegner,, who is now the general counsel, of course for Bitfinex and Tether small world, just wanted that extra bit of context that the prosecutors brought up during that evidentiary heating hearing mentioned as well.

00:13:17:10 - 00:13:19:07
Bennett Tomlin
In the context of Daniel Friedberg.

00:13:19:07 - 00:13:22:20
Sam Kessler
Yeah. So anyway, it was crazy. I mean, to sum it up, it didn't go well for Sam, by the way.

00:13:22:22 - 00:13:23:18
Sam Kessler
I don't know if we like.

00:13:23:18 - 00:13:26:02
Sam Kessler
Made that clear enough, but at least in my read

00:13:26:02 - 00:13:34:09
Cas Piancey
I think the most stunning part of this, not even reflecting on this, makes me just I just it hurts my brain is

00:13:34:09 - 00:13:37:10
Cas Piancey
They started a line of questioning and then

00:13:37:10 - 00:13:40:21
Cas Piancey
the defense asked him, asked him a question and

00:13:40:21 - 00:13:42:20
Cas Piancey
SBF’s lawyer, Cohen objected.

00:13:42:20 - 00:13:53:08
Cas Piancey
then the judge said, sustained. Like like, okay, this is, you know, like, yeah, the objection is good. Like, don't answer this question. To which Sam then answered the question.

00:13:53:13 - 00:13:55:09
Cas Piancey
And so his own lawyer goes,

00:13:55:09 - 00:13:59:03
Cas Piancey
Why did you answer this question? Haven't you been here for four weeks?

00:13:59:03 - 00:14:01:03
Sam Kessler
I should say no.

00:14:01:05 - 00:14:05:16
Sam Kessler
I should say this is where there is like one benefit to being.

00:14:05:18 - 00:14:08:06
Sam Kessler
Like one of the few benefits to waking up early and being in.

00:14:08:06 - 00:14:13:06
Sam Kessler
That courtroom is that was kind of a lighter moment. So you're talking the question was, I said something.

00:14:13:06 - 00:14:14:23
Sam Kessler
To the effect of did you.

00:14:14:23 - 00:14:16:08
Sam Kessler
Embezzle money?

00:14:16:10 - 00:14:28:12
Sam Kessler
And, you know, and, you know. COHEN, Sam's lawyer objected. You know, the judge said, sustained. And Sam was like, no.

00:14:28:12 - 00:14:33:08
Sam Kessler
And everybody laughed. And that was like with a smile. Cohen said, Hey, you.

00:14:33:08 - 00:14:36:00
Sam Kessler
Know, you've been here for weeks. You know, you don't have to answer that.

00:14:36:04 - 00:14:37:21
Sam Kessler
And Sam, like, laughed. And he was.

00:14:37:21 - 00:14:45:18
Sam Kessler
Like, Yeah, I just kind of thought I should answer that one. And the judge was smiling, too. So anyway, But yeah, please. Differently.

00:14:45:18 - 00:15:13:08
Cas Piancey
Sure. And it is also it, it still is idiotic right. Because you should be listening to your lawyer like, what in God's name are you doing? Holy crap. Which just leads everyone to believe. I think that Sam Bankman-Fried is absolutely taking the stand against the advice of his lawyers, probably against the advice of his parent, his parents, and that he still believes that he can talk his way out of this, or at least as I, as I pointed out, drag everyone down with him.

00:15:13:08 - 00:15:24:08
Bennett Tomlin
on a very basic level, was there anything new that you learned from Bankman-Fried testimony about how Alameda FTX worked that you thought was insightful or valuable?

00:15:24:08 - 00:15:55:20
Sam Kessler
There are some things, and I can't say that they were all brand new to everybody, but at least color for me. So there were some stuff that he brought up around a hack or it wasn't really a hack, but, you know, this mobile coin exploit where, you know, somebody was essentially able to borrow a ton on margin. And when these token prices shot up, they were essentially able to borrow against worthless tokens and really kind of imperil the the site or the platform, rather.

00:15:56:01 - 00:16:16:06
Sam Kessler
And so the he give like a bit of a step by step that's not worth getting into around that situation. That was at least interesting color. There was also some stuff about the allowed negative feature and why they implemented it. We'll get we can get to this. I don't know. His timeline did not really square with what we saw in evidence earlier in the trial.

00:16:16:07 - 00:16:26:04
Sam Kessler
But, you know, his rationale for why it happened was at least somewhat interesting. But broadly and I don't want to be get anything wrong here.

00:16:26:04 - 00:16:34:20
Sam Kessler
there was no smoking gun, if that's even the word in this context. That was like, hey, you know, you think this, but it's actually this.

00:16:34:20 - 00:16:40:03
Bennett Tomlin
think what you're kind of getting at there, that there wasn't really anything that made his story like

00:16:40:03 - 00:16:59:06
Bennett Tomlin
a different explanation that reasonably explained how the things happened without implicating him is kind of the impression I kept getting from his testimony. Like in the course of it, he repeatedly referred to the margin facility that FTX has, as he did in his pre in his media tour pre arrest.

00:16:59:08 - 00:17:19:18
Bennett Tomlin
But my understanding was that the analysis done by the people after the fact pointed out that the hole in FTX was larger than like the total amount of funds people had in the margin facility. And so it still seems to me like he's pointing at some level that defenses that have already been blown up and pretending they're still standing.

00:17:19:20 - 00:17:21:12
Bennett Tomlin
Am I missing something in that

00:17:21:12 - 00:17:35:08
Sam Kessler
No, you're not missing. I suggest to you that people read Liz Lopatto's piece on Friday's testimony In The Verge, because I think she does the best breakdown that I've seen of just like point by point, kind of some of these things that you're talking about, Bennett

00:17:35:08 - 00:17:51:06
Sam Kessler
broadly, I think what he did on Friday was he just put together different timelines and kind of made himself seem, you know, he painted the picture of this guy who's more of an adviser than he was a boss, you know, a person pulling the strings. He I mean, none of this was surprising either. This is what he was going to do.

00:17:51:11 - 00:18:08:14
Sam Kessler
But he also, you know, made it look like certain deputies of his were the ones behind, not just key decisions, but, you know, actions that at least plausibly, some of it I could understand where it's like, hey, I told these people to do, you know, one thing, And then they went off and did it in a way that I didn't expect.

00:18:08:14 - 00:18:08:22
Sam Kessler
And

00:18:08:22 - 00:18:18:16
Cas Piancey
I'm kind of actually fascinated by this because as you're taught, you keep mentioning, thankfully, I'm not the one having to mention Liz Lovato a bunch in this episode. Sam is doing it for me,

00:18:19:12 - 00:18:21:13
Sam Kessler
Do you do that? Do you have frequently

00:18:21:13 - 00:18:24:23
Cas Piancey
she's come up in every single episode that we've that we've done so far.

00:18:24:23 - 00:18:28:07
Cas Piancey
in her piece she talks about one of I'm so glad she brought this up because

00:18:28:07 - 00:18:53:20
Cas Piancey
someone asked Sam Beckman, four years ago or maybe a year or two ago, whatever it was about why he had chosen the name Alameda Research. And he very explicitly explained that the reason he had chosen the name Alameda Research was because it sounded not like we're trading cryptocurrencies in Bitcoins because banks don't like if you're doing that and they didn't want to lose their banking.

00:18:53:20 - 00:19:05:04
Cas Piancey
So they were going to make sure that banks thought they were just a research firm. And so that sounds a lot more like bank fraud then what his explanation was. Can you tell me what his explanation was?

00:19:05:04 - 00:19:28:17
Sam Kessler
mean, that was in the Lewis book as well for for all that's been said on both ends about that. I think that's kind of the general accept generally accepted history of what went on there. COURT It allowed me to research because it sounds more legit and not crypto-ey. We and you know, in his telling it's like, we kind of named it after a town in California and it was better than the other name, which was like wireless mouse, which, you know, it is.

00:19:28:17 - 00:19:40:21
Sam Kessler
Anyway, that's his story. It's much more it seems a lot less pointed. His choice to rename things. It wasn't all about distancing himself from crypto and hiding what they were doing.

00:19:40:21 - 00:19:52:09
Bennett Tomlin
Though he did even in his telling in the stand mentioned like I think he said we didn't want it to be called Sams crypto trading firm. We wanted it to be under the radar. So he is still kind of hinting at the same thing, right?

00:19:52:09 - 00:20:02:20
Sam Kessler
right when he said that it was like with an eye towards competitors, which was interesting though where it wasn't about like banking relationships and so on, at least my recollection was that it was about like competitors and such.

00:20:02:20 - 00:20:03:20
Sam Kessler
But Bennett, correct me

00:20:03:20 - 00:20:29:19
Bennett Tomlin
that lines up a little bit with kind of Michael Lewis's telling of his leaving, of Jane Street. Right. He believed that there was this massive inefficiency in the crypto market, and he kind of anticipated, if you take as literal, the descriptions in that portion of Lewis's book. He thought he only had perhaps 12 months, perhaps 18 months, something to potentially like take advantage of this inefficiency before other firms started moving in.

00:20:29:20 - 00:20:33:22
Bennett Tomlin
So that at least fits with what other people have said about him at some level.

00:20:33:22 - 00:20:37:15
Sam Kessler
I mean, coincidentally, I was actually seated next to.

00:20:37:17 - 00:20:40:01
Sam Kessler
Michael Lewis yesterday morning.

00:20:40:03 - 00:21:03:21
Sam Kessler
Like during the open of his, you know, Sam's whole, you know, testimony in front of jurors. And at least, you know, my Michael Lewis did not seem surprised by anything that Sam said, which kind of I should have said that before, which kind of goes to what we're talking about now, but also what you were asking earlier around, whether we've learned anything super, super, super new.

00:21:04:02 - 00:21:13:19
Sam Kessler
This is kind of the narrative that he's laid out with the exception of some of these weird things like this naming of Alameda Research, where they're reframed for for a jury.

00:21:13:19 - 00:21:33:03
Cas Piancey
Yeah, it just goes against. Hasn't that video actually been entered into evidence of Sam saying what it was actually for, which was essentially bank fraud? Like, I thought that that video had been entered into evidence as an exhibit. And if so, it goes like, if I was a juror, I would be like, which one do I trust?

00:21:33:03 - 00:21:46:12
Cas Piancey
The the version of Sam Bankman-Fried that feels like he doesn't have to lie about it and is just talking openly on a podcast or the one that here under oath, like, I know which one I'm going to believe, but I guess I'm not a juror. So luckily.

00:21:46:12 - 00:21:58:20
Sam Kessler
I guess I'm more sympathetic to Sam view of this is it was more it wasn't that he directly I think disputed that video and why he named things the way he did.

00:21:58:20 - 00:22:11:18
Sam Kessler
It's just that, you know, he might have also chosen Alameda because it was a town in California and he might have also liked it better than wireless mouse. So that's not necessarily a lie as much as it is a very convenient,

00:22:11:18 - 00:22:14:05
Sam Kessler
you know, excerpt of the the Truth.

00:22:14:05 - 00:22:18:01
Cas Piancey
Fair enough. Yeah. So those I do I did want to bring that up just because it seems like

00:22:18:01 - 00:22:32:14
Cas Piancey
untrustworthy witness. And I'm I'm wondering if that is the sense that that is felt in the courtroom, maybe just from the journalists, but I assume journalists feel that way just because they they remember the apology tour that he did post collapse.

00:22:32:14 - 00:22:39:01
Cas Piancey
But I guess I'm wondering if, like, there's a sense that this is the way it's coming across in court as well.

00:22:39:01 - 00:22:42:17
Sam Kessler
everything is going to hinge on the cross.

00:22:42:19 - 00:23:16:14
Sam Kessler
When Danielle Sassoon, the very capable prosecutor who will be asking him questions starting on Monday, has a chance to kind of dig into his testimony. And that's the most important thing I do think, though, if we're to back up a little bit and just, you know, look at his testimony from Friday, he, in my view, did a pretty good job of explaining things clearly, coming off as sympathetic and like a kind person, if that's even a fair, you know, characterization.

00:23:16:16 - 00:23:34:08
Sam Kessler
But like he you know, he was very upbeat. He seemed confident, He seemed poised. He didn't actually seem as scripted as some others, even though he was clearly well prepared, like he was coached. But he didn't seem to have his, you know, all of his things narrow like word for word nailed down. I don't think he did a poor job,

00:23:34:08 - 00:23:38:05
Sam Kessler
but it almost doesn't matter because the cross is really all of these.

00:23:38:07 - 00:23:47:17
Sam Kessler
And I also don't think, by the way, that the jury is going to pick up on most of these little nuances and distinctions that we've been talking about here, because we've been following this for a year

00:23:47:17 - 00:23:53:09
Sam Kessler
on top of, you know, really scrutinizing these transcripts in a way that I doubt the jury's able to do

00:23:53:09 - 00:24:03:01
Bennett Tomlin
Were there any differences between Sam Bankman-Fried testimony and those of other people in the inner circle that you want to highlight or draw attention to?

00:24:03:01 - 00:24:03:22
Sam Kessler
The first one,

00:24:03:22 - 00:24:26:09
Sam Kessler
that was pretty glaringly different from previous testimony centered around the quote unquote special privileges. I don't think that's the word that Sam ever used in his testimony. But the prosecutors used to describe these privileges that Alameda had on the FDA exchange, that other market makers and customers, clients of FTX did not have.

00:24:26:11 - 00:24:37:23
Sam Kessler
The key one being this allowed negative feature, which altogether kind of allowed Alameda to withdraw infinite money, you know, not get liquidated.

00:24:37:23 - 00:24:47:05
Sam Kessler
know, I don't know if that was all grouped under this allowed negative thing, but it all kind of grew into this like big set of, you know, basket of capabilities for Alameda Sam's own firm

00:24:47:05 - 00:24:50:16
Sam Kessler
briefly in the shard and Gary Wong's telling

00:24:50:16 - 00:24:53:11
Sam Kessler
they in 2019 implemented

00:24:53:11 - 00:24:55:18
Sam Kessler
version of this allowed negative feature.

00:24:55:18 - 00:25:28:08
Sam Kessler
that feature was to kind of accomplish the in even in their, you know, testimony more innocuous role of backstopping certain bad bugs or things that can happen with liquidity providers market makers on FTX it was like this weird kind of like fixed patch sort of thing, whether you believe that or whatever is beside the point. But anyway, they say it started in 2019 and then over the years the capabilities of this keep this function were expanded

00:25:28:08 - 00:25:35:07
Sam Kessler
so much that, you know, Alameda could withdraw infinitely and pull out infinite lines of credit, so on and so forth.

00:25:35:07 - 00:25:36:06
Sam Kessler
But anyway,

00:25:36:06 - 00:25:49:12
Sam Kessler
that's the allowed negative feature in Sam's telling. He instructed Ed Wong and Singh to implement a fix for a bug on the exchange,

00:25:49:12 - 00:26:04:15
Sam Kessler
which he expected to be, you know, a sort of flag or something like that that would allow Alameda or rather FTX to take action if Almeida's balance dropped below zero. So he thought it would be a flag or an alert, he said.

00:26:04:17 - 00:26:14:12
Sam Kessler
But you know, his deputies went off and implemented this thing that he says is the allowed negative feature. But the timeline this was years after 2019, his timeline.

00:26:14:12 - 00:26:37:13
Cas Piancey
I'm wondering what, you think the explanation is for such a large discrepancy in the timeline because the timeline differs by like a year plus, right? Like, how is there such a large discrepancy between what Gary Wong in The Shard Singh think and when this happened in these meetings that occurred with Sam versus what Sam recollects as happening way later And we're told under totally different circumstances.

00:26:37:13 - 00:26:40:08
Sam Kessler
So he could have misremembered.

00:26:40:10 - 00:26:43:17
Sam Kessler
He could have. We can probably throw that one out of the way.

00:26:43:19 - 00:26:56:16
Sam Kessler
He could have lied like, outright. He could have instructed, you know, either about the timeline or about his role. He might have directed them to do exactly what the future ultimately allowed, which was these infinite withdrawals

00:26:56:16 - 00:26:57:05
Sam Kessler
or

00:26:57:05 - 00:27:14:16
Sam Kessler
which is much more sympathetic. But I think it's also possible is like I, I don't know, I struggle with whether this makes sense, but I do think it might be possible that there was this kind of allowed negative function in the code that they did implement in 2019, which was this more innocuous thing.

00:27:14:19 - 00:27:31:11
Sam Kessler
And that what Sam was talking about on the stand on Friday was the expansion of the capabilities of the allowed negative function, not the allowed negative function itself. And so there is some you know, I you think they'd be more explicit about that if that was the case. But

00:27:31:11 - 00:27:36:13
Bennett Tomlin
I think you are exactly right that there was one version of it and then it got built on to form the other one.

00:27:36:17 - 00:28:06:08
Bennett Tomlin
And I think that matches up with all of the timelines given. So far, except for Sam pretending he didn't know when this feature was implemented because when FTX started, Alameda of research was approximately 50% of the total volume was the backstop liquidity provider for any trades that went wrong and supposedly like that was like Alameda was only supposed to then step in and it would then be covered by the Backstop Insurance Fund, which as previously testified about, did not actually exist and was just a random number.

00:28:06:08 - 00:28:28:05
Bennett Tomlin
They were putting in this function for a while until the mobile coin issue, where someone was able to take out this massive position in Alameda, then as the backstop liquidity provider had to step in and an unreasonable price when they got liquidated. Sam Bankman-Fried then testified about telling Gary Wang and Nishad Singh to go in and add in additional speed bumps related to erroneous liquidation.

00:28:28:07 - 00:28:52:03
Bennett Tomlin
So I think what Sam Bankman-Fried is talking about is Alameda Research's exemption from auto liquidation was, I think, added after mobile coin, But I think the allowed negative feature based on all the testimony so far predates that and goes back to Alameda’s institution as the primary market maker and the backstop liquidity provider for FTX. And so what changed at this point is the exemption from automatic liquidation.

00:28:52:09 - 00:29:13:10
Bennett Tomlin
And it was important for Alameda Research to be exempted from automatic liquidation because they were still at this point the entire backstop liquidity provider. And so there were cases where if Alameda Research's own position was liquidated, they would end up on the bad side, on both the bad sides of that trade, having to effectively step in to fill their own false liquidity, their own bad liquidation.

00:29:13:10 - 00:29:33:08
Bennett Tomlin
Right. And so by exempting Alameda Research from liquidation, you make it so Alameda Research never has to step in to fill in for Alameda Research’s own bad trade. But that means the bad trade can now balloon because you've already implemented this will negative related to all these other activities Alameda is doing. And then you end up after a variety of other bad decisions with an $8 billion hole.

00:29:33:08 - 00:29:53:15
Sam Kessler
you just did a much more thorough and better job explaining that whole thing that I said was kind of new to me in this testimony, which was explaining the rationale behind this feature. And I actually do find that as a sort of believable thing, whether or not what he knew about things, what he directed or didn't direct, you know, all those elements of his testimony, whether those things are true.

00:29:53:21 - 00:30:03:18
Sam Kessler
But I do think I can see a world where it was a more benign sort of a thing that came about in result, you know, of these problems with how the exchange was architected.

00:30:03:18 - 00:30:06:20
Sam Kessler
well, I was going to have a bit of a digression about the risk engine

00:30:06:20 - 00:30:34:18
Sam Kessler
just think it's interesting, at least we who have been following this know and been following FTX since before collapse know that this risk engine, this, you know, cross marketing system was supposed to be the state of the art thing that worked on FTX and for some reason really no other major exchanges. And the fact that that was essentially false advertising, it seems at this point that thing that you just explained, Ben, it actually undermines other pieces of, you know,

00:30:35:03 - 00:30:36:04
Bennett Tomlin
Exactly.

00:30:36:04 - 00:30:41:14
Sam Kessler
is that this was an, you know, upright, you know, very straightforward, trustworthy business.

00:30:41:16 - 00:30:46:11
Sam Kessler
Because if that stuff is true, then this system did not work like he advertised it to have worked.

00:30:46:11 - 00:31:20:22
Bennett Tomlin
Well, yes. And like in that very same vein, in his testimony to Congress when he was effectively advocating for the DCCPA, we can discuss what he was actually doing. He talked about how he specifically said Alameda was not exempted from any of the like normal merging processes. And as part of his testimony before the Agricultural Committee or whoever it was at the time and so like him now saying, I told them to put in speed bumps related to liquidation that I imagine could come up on cross.

00:31:21:00 - 00:31:44:16
Bennett Tomlin
And like I think more directly speaking to it, we're like, there might be more benign explanations for certain decisions made. Like the allow negative could have been a choice made because of legitimate difficulties in moving certain assets, and it may have been made with good intentions. However, my trouble with Sam Bankman-Fried and whenever he starts trying to make it seem that way is like

00:31:44:16 - 00:31:59:17
Bennett Tomlin
often companies that are providing financial services are governed by a set of rules that only very barely touch on what your intentions are when you're doing certain things and very often describe what actions you're supposed to take.

00:31:59:23 - 00:32:16:06
Bennett Tomlin
And at a basic level, you know, allowing your company to withdraw more assets than they have, regardless of whether or not you intend to do it or intend to do it a lot, or only intend to do it for a couple of days, while you send money over to Circle and Tether or whatever? Your intent

00:32:16:06 - 00:32:20:18
Bennett Tomlin
only matters up to a point, especially when there's 8 billion missing.

00:32:20:20 - 00:32:46:11
Sam Kessler
Absolutely. Also, one thing that I feel like isn't talked about enough or hasn't been talked about enough since Friday is we do really need to allow for the possibility or probability that many elements of the testimony that we've heard up to this point from either Gary, Nishad or Caroline and others has also been either, you know, embellished, manufactured for their own benefit.

00:32:46:11 - 00:32:50:22
Sam Kessler
Like it's not like Sam's the only one who has to testify in a certain way.

00:32:50:22 - 00:32:52:00
Sam Kessler
To negate.

00:32:52:00 - 00:32:53:22
Sam Kessler
His own role in what happened.

00:32:54:02 - 00:33:19:18
Cas Piancey
I'd like to push back on that a little bit because I think the benefit of the arrangement that the government has with those witnesses is in that if they are caught lying or if they didn't share some information that they should have with the government, they're liable to do a shit ton of prison time because the government can still get them for any of that.

00:33:19:23 - 00:33:42:10
Cas Piancey
And so it almost makes you go like, well, they're going to they're going to give themselves up for everything that they think they're even possibly close to having committed in terms of crimes. And and I think that is where I see it as like, it's hard to suggest that they're as unreliable as Sam Bankman-Fried might

00:33:42:10 - 00:33:46:21
Bennett Tomlin
Well, yeah, and at a very basic level, all of them admit they committed crimes

00:33:46:21 - 00:33:51:14
Bennett Tomlin
like Naushad Gary, Caroline Ryan. They all say I did crimes.

00:33:51:14 - 00:34:15:14
Sam Kessler
I do want to go back to, like, something specific, though, which is this bug feature or this, you know, allowed negative feature that we're talking about. Let's look at like the kind of like Occam's razor version of this, which is, you know, Sam, Gary and the Shard in a room talking about things and I think it does make sense where they all kind of like have this vague sense of like how they were going to fix this bug or they were like, Hey, we need to let them go more negative.

00:34:15:16 - 00:34:33:17
Sam Kessler
Maybe it wasn't Sam who was like, Hey, this is the solution. We need to do this thing. But I think it's easy to kind of like construe that conversation. However it went down as, Hey, Sam told us to do a thing. We did exactly that thing. I can't imagine that it's that simple. Or maybe I mean, maybe it is.

00:34:33:17 - 00:34:50:10
Sam Kessler
But I guess what I'm saying is it's not about like, you know, it's not I shouldn't say that. They they, they it's likely that anybody outright, outright, outright lied. But I do think that there's, like a way to believe and tell this story that does kind of inculcate your your own, you know, role in things

00:34:50:10 - 00:35:13:20
Bennett Tomlin
It's Nishad Singh talking about how bad he feels while buying his house. Right. It's Caroline Ellison. Like being this. This was all such a relief to me when I finally got to be honest about all this and all that. And it's probably at some level true they did feel bad or did feel relieved or whatever. But by presenting that story or in Caroline's case, framing her relationship with Sam in certain ways, does

00:35:13:20 - 00:35:14:11
Bennett Tomlin
I agree?

00:35:14:11 - 00:35:17:04
Bennett Tomlin
Probably make certain things seem more striking?

00:35:17:04 - 00:35:41:10
Sam Kessler
Now, just to head back to Sam's testimony and, you know, these, you know, holes that you can kind of poke by looking at past testimony, Sam makes it seem like he didn't know about this whole or that, you know, in Alameda and how it was, you know, using essentially FTX customer funds, in effect until October of 2022, which was a month before it ultimately collapsed.

00:35:41:12 - 00:35:54:08
Sam Kessler
And that goes, you know, in the telling of all the other witnesses, he had a sense that things were, you know, going in this direction since at least June, as early as at least June of 2022.

00:35:54:08 - 00:36:06:05
Sam Kessler
And that's just, you know, reconciling that statement with what we've heard from past witnesses is probably going to be a key point of focus for prosecutors,

00:36:06:05 - 00:36:10:03
Sam Kessler
the point being and this is why they needed those charts from Mr. Pimbley.

00:36:10:03 - 00:36:17:06
Sam Kessler
that we spoke about earlier, is they kind of want to make the you know, the prosecutors are going to want to show that Sam knew that he was

00:36:17:06 - 00:36:32:18
Sam Kessler
drawing money. He knew about Alameda’s finances, and he knew that because of the levels of assets and liabilities that, you know, he had to be, in effect, drawing from customer funds because Alameda just did not have enough and did not have enough of revenues to cover, you know, what he was drawing.

00:36:32:18 - 00:36:34:06
Bennett Tomlin
Yeah. Which to me means

00:36:34:06 - 00:36:58:18
Bennett Tomlin
I expect we'll hear again about Alameda Research using FTX's customer funds to buy back FTX equity before the series B-1 before the for 420 69 round because that's way before all the other things. And Caroline already testified that that was using FTX customer funds at Sam's explicit request. So I imagine we're going to hear that in the cross

00:36:58:18 - 00:37:10:09
Cas Piancey
issue that I've been coming away with that I've been noticing is that and you can scroll through the comments section of any of our videos unfortunately, and see this is that there's this large swath of the population.

00:37:10:09 - 00:37:18:18
Cas Piancey
I'm not sure how much is actually represented by the kind of weirdos that I interact with on Twitter and on

00:37:18:18 - 00:37:19:09
Cas Piancey
YouTube,

00:37:19:09 - 00:37:30:10
Cas Piancey
there's this there seems to be this belief that because of Sam's donations, because of his wealth, because of his background, because of who his parents are, because of who he knows

00:37:30:10 - 00:37:31:21
Cas Piancey
he's going to get off.

00:37:32:02 - 00:37:42:10
Cas Piancey
He's not going to do any prison time. And it's hard for me to reconcile that perspective with the reality that I'm watching transpire in court.

00:37:42:10 - 00:37:44:11
Cas Piancey
I know that

00:37:44:11 - 00:37:45:13
Cas Piancey
you have to be

00:37:45:13 - 00:37:50:09
Cas Piancey
open to the idea that there's a chance. Sam

00:37:50:09 - 00:37:55:14
Cas Piancey
doesn't do any prison time. But can you kind of speak to

00:37:55:14 - 00:37:59:16
Cas Piancey
how people feel about those odds in the courtroom?

00:37:59:16 - 00:38:02:20
Cas Piancey
And after watching this day in and day out.

00:38:02:20 - 00:38:12:23
Sam Kessler
Things are not going well for Sam in court. My impression is at least that, I mean, the concern that you hear about,

00:38:12:23 - 00:38:31:09
Sam Kessler
hear that maybe they could actually file, you know, for a mistrial because Judge Kaplan, who is overseeing the case and have shot down a bunch of Sam's proposed expert witnesses, frequently admonishes his defense, you know, more so than the prosecutors in court.

00:38:31:11 - 00:38:40:03
Sam Kessler
You know, people think that if there's any biased, it's and I'm not backing this on either end, but if there's any bias you hear in the courtroom, it's actually against Sam's team.

00:38:40:03 - 00:38:46:04
Sam Kessler
there's obviously some opaque pieces of our justice system that I can't pretend to understand.

00:38:46:04 - 00:38:50:17
Sam Kessler
But, you know, the Southern District of New York, they are attack dogs.

00:38:50:17 - 00:39:14:00
Sam Kessler
They are known as, you know, some of the best, if not the best prosecutors in the country. And the fact that they worked so hard to get this case on some you know, we can argue about whether it even makes sense to be prosecuted in the Southern District of New York is kind of a random place. But, you know, the fact that it's being prosecuted there with this judge, with these, you know, assistant AG's like it.

00:39:14:00 - 00:39:14:21
Sam Kessler
It's just.

00:39:14:21 - 00:39:18:11
Sam Kessler
Yeah. That does not square Cas with my read

00:39:18:11 - 00:39:40:05
Cas Piancey
And just into pushback on that jurisdictional issue, I do want to bring up the point that we had Cynthia Cooper on the show. Gosh, I don't know, maybe maybe it's a year ago now and she was an auditor for the company, WorldCom, which collapsed due to fraud. And that was also tried in SDNY, from what I can remember.

00:39:40:05 - 00:39:43:19
Cas Piancey
And the reason being money, like that's the reason

00:39:43:19 - 00:39:59:10
Sam Kessler
I mean, financial crimes are frequently they're the best at this kind of a thing. I'm more just saying that, like, these are the best at prosecuting this kind of a thing, and they didn't put them in some random courtroom somewhere. They, you know, found a way to get him in the best courtroom or the worst, you know, for him.

00:39:59:10 - 00:40:16:04
Bennett Tomlin
mean, it's useful for the Southern District of New York that like jurisdiction only at a certain level. Such a huge portion of dollar transactions happen to run through banks in their jurisdiction. They end up getting to say, Yeah, look, there's our nexus. It's right there to just about anything they want.

00:40:16:04 - 00:40:17:14
Cas Piancey
Nexus is Wall Street, baby.

00:40:17:14 - 00:40:19:09
Cas Piancey
Are you happy it's coming to an end?

00:40:19:09 - 00:40:23:13
Cas Piancey
Are you sad? Are you? Is it a bittersweet moment or are you. Are you done with this?

00:40:23:13 - 00:40:45:15
Sam Kessler
Yeah. I mean, it's. It's been crazy. It's. It's been a really professionally positive experience for me. I mean, I can't say, like, just meeting all these, you know, really brilliant people that I've been reading for a long time, working with my great colleagues, you know, seeing our justice system and how it works for an extended period. It's like watching the director's cut, too, of a movie like that.

00:40:45:15 - 00:41:00:17
Sam Kessler
I've seen and know really, really well, and I'll get to kind of lift the curtain on. So for all those reasons, it's positive, you know? But it is like you take a step back, you know, you say what you want about Sam Bankman-Fried. There's a guy's life that's kind of at stake here or a big part of it.

00:41:00:19 - 00:41:15:09
Sam Kessler
And if you'll, you know, the atmosphere around it can feel a little bit odd at times, like because it is fun being with your friends that like this kind of a camp sort of setting all of us like as we're waiting every morning. But I'm excited and seeing his parents like whatever role they had, like they can't be having a good time.

00:41:15:09 - 00:41:26:01
Sam Kessler
So it's just, you know, it's a lot of people, you know, one person hurt or several people hurt a lot of people, but they're getting hurt, too. And kind of just seeing it all play out. It's not really.

00:41:26:01 - 00:41:29:04
Sam Kessler
The most uplifting environment.

00:41:29:05 - 00:41:45:16
Sam Kessler
As for articles, please read our coverage. We cover it live every single day on Coindesk. We have these articles that we just flesh out with as much detail as we can, and then we do a newsletter that you also subscribe to on our site, where we kind of do some more of like a step back take of what happened and what to expect.

00:41:45:18 - 00:41:56:06
Sam Kessler
I mentioned Liz Lopatto's article. I'm Katie Baker is another awesome reporter who's been covering this every day for The Ringer. There's so many you know, there's tons of really, really great

00:41:56:08 - 00:42:09:14
Cas Piancey
Know, need to show for them. They can show themselves when they come on the podcast. No? Well, no, we're fingers crossed that we get Liz Lopatto soon. But yes, Katie, Katie's been on

00:42:09:14 - 00:42:12:05
Bennett Tomlin
and Liz has been on before, just not for the trial.

00:42:12:05 - 00:42:13:03
Cas Piancey
Yes, yes, yes.

00:42:13:03 - 00:42:29:03
Cas Piancey
Thank you for coming on, Sam. It was a pleasure to have you. And as for the I know there's an ongoing case CasCoin versus the Department of Justice, and I will be taking the stand, and the gag order does not apply.

00:42:29:03 - 00:42:32:15
Bennett Tomlin
you're you're suing the Department of Justice?

00:42:32:15 - 00:42:39:07
Cas Piancey
Sorry. I guess I'm. That's how involved in the that's how involved in my own case I am right now. I have not

00:42:39:07 - 00:42:42:06
Bennett Tomlin
I mean, really, it's Burrito's case.

00:42:42:06 - 00:42:47:12
Cas Piancey
she's already spoken against me. Yeah. Anyway, thank you. Thank you. Sam. It's been a pleasure to have you on.

00:42:47:12 - 00:42:49:08
Sam Kessler
thank you guys. This is a lot of fun
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