I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab. Well, it happened. One of the highest profile trials of the year, the trial of FTX founder

Sam Begman Freed has come to an exciting and dramatic conclusion.

To help me break down the details of the trial is blockchain and cryptocurrency expert Ash Bennington.

Ash is such an expert that he wrote the book on SBF.

Literally. His book, crypto-crack-up, is out now.

I have linked it in the show notes.

Now, let's dig into the fate of SBF and, kidding the potential comeback of FTX.

Ash Bennington, welcome to money rehab.

Thanks for having me.

Holy shit, FTX.

It has been what a year almost to the day since Sam Bangman-Freed's crypto exchange FTX declared bankruptcy

and the SEC started their whole investigation.

What a crazy ass ride.

I mean, we've covered some crazy things in the business world,

but this one's a whole different level.

Obviously, this has been a pretty ugly moment for the crypto space but I think people who are interested in

crypto people who are passionate about crypto would probably say look Sam Bankman freed

represented the antithesis of all the values of this space that people hold dear.

This was about centralization. This was about a company and a person being in control of huge amounts of customer funds that we now know that he

lent out essentially to a hedge fund that he also owned. I mean it's just it's just

ugly top to bottom Nicole but for me I think the bottom line is this looks like a traditional fraud, something that you might have seen in the banking space, something that you might have seen in terms of a hedge fund failure. There's nothing really about the underlying crime that was inherently

...