Sam Bankman-Fried was scheduled to testify in front of a House committee today, but he was expectedly detained. The biggest crypto/business story of the year just became a legal story, as the Bahama melodrama took a new turn. SBF who was DBA as FTX needs a JSD from the ABA because as of this morning, he is SOL. Bankman-Fried has been charged “with a host of financial crimes on Tuesday, alleging he intentionally deceived customers and investors to enrich himself and others, while playing a central role in the company’s multibillion-dollar collapse. The 13-page indictment says that, beginning in 2019, Bankman-Fried devised ‘a scheme and artifice to defraud’ FTX’s customers and investors, diverting their money to pay expenses and debts at his crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research, and to make lavish real estate purchases and large political donations.” I have an active ignorance when it comes to crypto-currency, but I have a weird feeling that SBF will be viewed as the Barry Bonds of crypto. A few people will get caught and tagged as cheaters, but almost everyone in the game is part of a tainted era.

+ To wit… “James Block, a vehement crypto skeptic, has spent the past 18 months doing forensic blockchain research. He uses open-source tools to follow flows of money between crypto companies, repeatedly demonstrating how shadow banks and nefarious scammers inflate the value of worthless assets in order to generate enormous wealth that exists only on paper.” Charlie Warzel in The Atlantic: Crypto Was Always Smoke and Mirrors.

+ Vox: FTX’s implosion and SBF’s arrest, explained.

+ 5 things FTX did with its money — including customer assets — according to its new CEO.

+ The new court-appointed FTX CEO was available to testify to the House committee. “This is just old fashion embezzlement, taking money from others and using it for your own purposes. This is not sophisticated at all.”

+ Meanwhile, according to Retuers, the U.S. Justice Dept is split over charging Binance as crypto world falters.