A Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm backed by disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly considering an initial public offering (IPO) in the US.

According to a new report by Bloomberg, anonymous sources familiar with the matter say that Genesis Digital Assets, which is backed by Alameda Research, is currently working with advisors on the potential listing.

Alameda Research was once the investing branch of the former crypto exchange FTX.

One of the sources divulged that the firm is planning on launching a pre-IPO funding round in the coming weeks.

Genesis Digital Assets, which has its roots in 2014, eventually started large-scale operations in China before the nation banned the entire industry in 2021. Then, the company raised $550 million and moved to the US, according to the report.

Between 2021 and 2022, Alameda Research invested over $1 billion into Genesis Digital Assets, before the FTX empire collapsed and Bankman-Fried was accused and subsequently found guilty of defrauding investors and mishandling billions of dollars worth of customer funds.

In April 2022, Genesis Digital Assets was valued at $5.5 billion, according to an internal company memo seen by Bloomberg News. However, when FTX collapsed in November 2022, the digital assets industry saw sharp price decreases across the board.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

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Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty of spearheading a billion-dollar fraud against customers and investors at the crypto exchange FTX and trading firm Alameda Research.

A jury has found Bankman-Fried guilty on all seven charges against him, including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against FTX’s customers, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud against Alameda’s lenders, conspiracy to commit securities fraud against FTX’s investors, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud against FTX’s customers and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The jury took just four hours to reach a verdict.

Bankman-Fried was arrested in December after the epic collapse of his former crypto empire.

Prosecutors accused him of stealing billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to purchase investments, loan repayments, political donations and real estate.

Former FTX chief technology officer Gary Wang, former head of engineering Nishad Singh and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison testified against Bankman-Fried at the trial, saying they had carried out his orders.

Bankman-Fried testified that he did not knowingly defraud anyone, although he admitted there were “significant oversights” at his companies.

“A lot of people got hurt – customers, employees. And the company ended up in bankruptcy. I made a number of small mistakes and a number of larger mistakes.”

Sentencing is expected to take place early next year.

Bankman-Fried faces a total possible sentence of 115 years in prison.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any loses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

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A 75-minute secretly recorded audio clip of Caroline Ellison has revealed the exact moment 15 former Alameda Research staff found out the trading firm was “borrowing” user funds from FTX. 

The full-length recording obtained by Cointelegraph provides fresh insights into the palpable tension Ellison and Alameda staff felt in the lead-up to FTX’s collapse.

“Alameda was kind of borrowing a bunch of money via open-term loans and using that to make various illiquid investments. So like a bunch of FTX and FTX US equity […] Most of Alameda’s loans got called in in order to meet those recalls,” Ellison explained during an all-hands meeting in Hong Kong on Nov. 9, 2022.

“We ended up borrowing a bunch of funds from FTX, which led to FTX having a shortfall in user funds.”

“[FTX] basically always allowed Alameda to borrow users’ funds,” she added, speaking to the 15 or so staff in the meeting.

Select segments of the audio recording of the meeting were also played before the court on the eighth day of Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial on Oct. 12, which was part of witness testimony from Christian Drappi, a former software engineer at Alameda.

Drappi’s appearance on the witness stand came immediately following nearly three days of Ellison’s testimony. It is understood that before the meeting, Drappi and many other Alameda employees had no idea that the hedge fund had allegedly been using FTX customer deposits to prop up its trading activity.

In the recording, Drappi is also overheard asking Ellison when she became aware that Alameda was misusing FTX user deposits and who else at the company had known about it.

Initially, Ellison shied away from answering, but Drappi pressed again:

“I’m sure this wasn’t, like, a YOLO thing, right?”

Related: Changpeng Zhao’s tweet ‘contributed’ to collapse of FTX, claims Caroline Ellison

According to court reporting from the trial, the playback of this audio led to one of the more humorous moments in court, where Drappi had to explain the term “YOLO” to everyone in attendance, saying that he wanted Ellison to confirm that the use of FTX deposits hadn’t just been a “spontaneous” decision.

In his testimony, Drappi also described Ellison’s conduct at the meeting as “sunken” and didn’t display much in the way of confidence to Alameda employees. He said he was “stunned” to learn about the extent of the relationship between FTX and Alameda and quit the next day.

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Alameda Research engineer Aditya Baradwaj, who was also present at the meeting, said the room was “extremely tense,” with Ellison surfacing a wealth of new information that had “never been discussed internally” — including the later-abandoned acquisition of FTX by its then-largest competitor Binance.

“It became pretty clear that there was no future for the company and that we all had to leave. And we did that right after,” said Baradwaj.

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