Welcome to the SBF trial, a CoinDesk 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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Coin Desk Regulation Team and voiced by Wondercraft AI.

A Parisian cocoa trader told Sam Bankman-Fried's trial jury that Pricy Ads and FTCS's

confident CEO helped convince him the crypto exchange was a safe place to deposit over $100,000 so he could trade

cryptocurrencies. But he never expected that anyone but him would touch his funds. The federal

government began its prosecution of Bankman Freed in earnest Wednesday afternoon, with a customer-turned

witness who introduced the jury to crypto trading, the FtX Exchange,

and the allegedly illegal loans that felled crypto's fastest-growing company last November.

Mark Antoine Giuliard, a commodities trader who lives in London, said he only intended to spot

trade cryptocurrencies on FTCs, which is to say buy and sell tokens like Bitcoin.

Critically, he said he never agreed to loan his assets out.

The finance professional said he avoided FTX's more lucrative margin lend feature

because he wanted to have full control over his assets.

Did you ever consider the possibility that FTX was borrowing your money?

Asked Assistant U.S. attorney Danielle Kudla, a prosecuting attorney?

Julliard responded, no.

More than 100 reporters and onlookers gathered in one of Manhattan's largest wood-paneled federal

courthouses to catch a glimpse of Bankman Freed, the 31-year-old who prosecutors say defrauded his crypto customers,

investors, and lenders of billions of dollars. In their opening argument, prosecutors cast

Bankman Fried as a calculating villain who told few in his empire about the alleged illegal activity

that they said ruined his companies and ravaged investors.

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