By Jody Godoy and Luc Cohen
Sam Bankman-Fried, testifying in his own defense at his fraud trial on Friday, acknowledged that a “lot of people got hurt” when the FTX cryptocurrency exchange he founded collapsed, but said he did not defraud anyone or take customer funds.
Shortly after taking the witness stand in Manhattan federal court, Bankman-Fried said he made “a number of small mistakes and a number of larger mistakes” while running the now-bankrupt exchange. The biggest mistake, he said, was not implementing a dedicated risk management team.