UNCHAINED: FTX's Ryan Salame Is Going to Prison. Here’s What He Has to Say
CoinDesk Podcast Network
CoinDesk
4.8 • 689 Ratings
🗓️ 11 October 2024
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As former FTX executive Ryan Salame heads to prison, he blames Alameda’s lawyers, says prosecutors misled his attorneys, and explains why he thinks Caroline Ellison is at least as guilty as Sam Bankman-Fried.
Ryan Salame, the former CEO of FTX Digital Markets, is headed to prison, but not before sharing his side of the story. Ryan talks candidly about the decisions he made at FTX, why he withdrew millions of dollars worth of assets in the days leading up to its bankruptcy, and the backstory behind the Thai prostitute trading scheme to unfreeze Alameda’s funds in China. He also disputes the claims about his campaign finance violations, while explaining why he thinks Caroline Ellison is “at least as guilty as SBF” and that Nishad Singh lied.
Show highlights:
- Ryan’s life pre-FTX and how he got into crypto
- His three attempts to quit working at FTX
- How Ryan committed campaign finance violations
- Why Ryan disputes claims that FTX misled banks and misused customer funds
- How Ryan was involved in setting up trading accounts with the identities of Thai prostitutes to unfreeze Alameda’s funds
- Whether Ryan was involved in bribing a Chinese official
- Why he withdrew millions of dollars worth of assets from his FTX accounts right before its bankruptcy
- Why Ryan claims he was cooperative with prosecutors, despite common belief
- How he refuses to comment on his wife Michelle Bond's case, but denies wrongdoing
- Why Ryan pleaded the Fifth Amendment
- His allegations that prosecutors lied to his lawyers about whether they would pursue charges against Michelle
- Why he thinks that SBF could have never coerced Caroline Ellison and whether Ellison is “equally guilty” as SBF
- Why Ryan believes Nishad Singh lied to save himself and his take on Gary Wang
- How, if he didn’t know about the fraud, he could be so certain that Caroline or Nishad lied
- Whether the legal advice from FTX’s and Alameda’s lawyers should have been considered in Bankman-Fried's trial
- Whether testimony from more employees could have created reasonable doubt in SBF's trial
- Why Ryan is going to law school
- His plans post-prison
- What Ryan learned from the FTX debacle
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Guest:
Ryan Salame, former CEO of FTX Digital Markets
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Thanks for listening to Unchained, your no-hype resource for all things crypto, on the CoinDesk |
| 0:05.2 | Podcast Network. You can also listen to the episodes on the Unchained feed earlier if you |
| 0:10.5 | subscribe there. Plus, check out all our content on our website, Unchained Crypto.com. |
| 0:17.1 | Hey, everyone. Today's interview is with Ryan Salem, the second FTCX executive who will be serving time. |
| 0:23.2 | He was the head of FTX digital markets, which was the Bahamian entity. His part in the FTCS story had to do with the campaign violations that were initially part of Sam Pinkman-Freed's trial, but then got severed into their own trial due to technicalities involving the agreement |
| 0:38.4 | that the U.S. and the Bahamas had over SBF's extradition to the U.S. |
| 0:43.8 | However, that second trial never happened because the government got a sweeping conviction |
| 0:48.1 | on all seven charges in the first trial, and so decided not to go ahead with the second one. |
| 0:54.0 | While SBF's trial did have bits and |
| 0:55.7 | pieces of information involving the campaign finance charges, the full extent of the government's |
| 1:00.8 | allegations never gotten airing at trial. This interview with Ryan helped bring more of those details to |
| 1:06.6 | life. Also, for those of you on crypto Twitter, I'm sure you couldn't help but notice that Ryan |
| 1:11.8 | has been tweeting a lot leading up to his prison sentence. There's been a lot of juicy things that |
| 1:16.3 | he has said in those tweets, so I asked him about some of his spicier takes. When we recorded this |
| 1:22.5 | episode, we didn't know when we would be releasing it. And there was also a question in the era of when |
| 1:27.4 | he would begin his sentence. But today, also a question in the era of when he would |
| 1:27.7 | begin his sentence. But today, the day we are publishing, Friday, October 11th, Ryan is reporting |
| 1:33.3 | to prison. Just hours after we wrapped our recording, he made a post on LinkedIn that referred to |
| 1:38.6 | the federal prison that will be his home for the next several years. Quote, I'm happy to share |
| 1:43.6 | that I'm starting a new position as |
| 1:45.5 | inmate at FCI Cumberland. And now here's my interview with Ryan Salem. I think the way |
| 1:52.3 | Caroline portrayed the relationship between her and Sam doesn't do justice to the fact that I think |
... |
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