Welcome to the SBF trial, a Coin Desk Podcast Network newsletter bringing you daily insights from inside the courtroom where Sam Bankman-Fried will try to stay out of prison.

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Sam Bankman-Fried had a grin on his face as he entered court on Tuesday morning, clad in a

black suit and an uncharacteristically tame mop of hair. After nine long months, the disgraced

crypto founder will finally have the chance to

defend himself against a wide array of federal fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the collapse of

FTX, his crypto and futures exchange, and Alameda Research, the crypto trading firm he founded,

and, according to prosecutors, used to illegally reinvest FTX user funds.

The first day of the Bankman-Fried trial was all about jury selection, the process by which a

judge, defense, and prosecution worked together to filter more than 80 New Yorkers to a final

group of 12 jurors and six alternates. Judge Lewis

Kaplan, the judge overseeing the case, peppered the jury pool with questions. Underscoring the

trial's location in the heart of New York's financial district and the scale of Bankman

Freed's once giant crypto empire, the initial list of potential jurors included people whose

professions overlapped with Alameda and FTX list of potential jurors included people whose professions overlapped with

Alameda and FTX. One potential juror said she had worked until recently at Signature,

the crypto-friendly bank that crumbled earlier this year and had ties to Alameda and FTX.

Another member of the jury pool said her employer had invested directly in Alameda and FTX.

Did your employer make or lose money as a result of their investments? asked Kaplan.

Lost money, said the juror.

The goal of Kaplan's questions was to suss out which of the many prospective jurors would be able to serve impartially.

A particularly complex endeavor given the headline-grabbing

...