Secret recording of Caroline Ellison meeting with Alameda staff exposed in SBF criminal trial
Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, leaves Manhattan Federal Court after testifying during the trial of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, on October 10, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
In an all-hands meeting on the evening of Nov. 9, 2022, Alameda Research employees gathered in a circle to listen to CEO Caroline Ellison, who was sitting on a beanbag.
It was 11 p.m. in Hong Kong, and roughly half of the employees — 15 people — at Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund were present. Christian Drappi, a former software engineer at Alameda, was one of them. Ten others joined via video from the Bahamas. The Alameda office was across the street from FTX, Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange.
On Thursday, Drappi took the stand as a government witness in the criminal trial against Bankman-Fried, which is taking place 11 months after Alameda and FTX spiraled into bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried faces seven federal fraud charges and the potential of life in prison. He’s pleaded not guilty.
Drappi’s appearance on the stand in Manhattan came at the end of Ellison’s third day of testimony and included a recording of the Hong Kong meeting. Rick Best, a trader who had joined Alameda just days earlier, was directly to Ellison’s right and secretly recording the meeting as audio.
The prosecution played multiple clips from the recording, and the defense team played one in cross-examination.
To a packed courtroom, Drappi described Ellison’s demeanor that night as “sunken.” He said she was “kinda slouching” and “did not display confident body language.”
“Alameda borrowed a bunch of money,” which it used to make investments, Ellison said on the recording. But as crypto prices fell, “FTX had a shortfall of user funds” and then “users started withdrawing their funds” and they “realized they would not be able to continue.”
Drappi can be heard on the tape asking about FTX’s plan to pay back customers. Ellison, who has pleaded guilty to fraud charges and is cooperating with prosecutors, responded that the company would raise money to fill the hole. Drappi told the jury that he was concerned with that response because it’s not typical to raise outside money for that purpose.
Drappi asked Ellison if Alameda’s loans were collateralized through the spot margin group. She said they weren’t, and Drappi said, “That seems pretty bad.”
Drappi wanted to know from Ellison if this was a “YOLO thing.”
He was asked in the courtroom to explain YOLO, and said, “It’s an acronym for ‘you only live once.'”
“When you do a YOLO thing, it’s something that’s spontaneous and not premeditated,” Drappi said. “I wanted to have Ms. Ellison confirm that indeed, you know, they had meetings about this and there was a deliberate decision, as I suspected it would be.”
At one point on the recording, Ellison giggled. Drappi, who said he’d known Ellison for a year and a half, described that as her “nervous laughter” and said she did it quite often.
When she was asked by a staffer whose idea it was to plug Alameda’s loan losses with FTX customer money, she said, “Um, Sam, I guess,” and giggled.
“FTX basically always allowed Alameda to, like, borrow user funds, as far as I know” she said on the recording.
Drappi resigned within 24 hours.
Caroline Ellison is questioned during Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial over the collapse of FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, at Federal Court in New York City, U.S., October 11, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Drappi started at Alameda on May 31, 2021. Over the next 18 months, he worked in three offices: Hong Kong, the Bahamas and San Francisco. He was in Hong Kong as the business was falling apart.
In his testimony, Drappi said he observed Bankman-Fried working at the Hong Kong office and sat about 40 feet from him there for a couple months. The two hung out some out of the office, including to play padel, a hybrid of tennis and squash.
Drappi said Bankman-Fried maintained direct communications with Alameda employees through Signal. He weighed in on large trades and had access to “pointer,” Alameda’s internal interface, as well as to the firm’s back-end data.
In regards to trading, Drappi referenced one instance in which a senior trader said “Sam wanted to do it,” referring to a trade involving selling Japanese bonds and buying the currency. Drappi said he spoke to Alameda traders every day.
The night before the all-hands meeting, Nov. 8, Drappi said he was in the office along with Ellison and two traders, Tony Qian and David Nyeste. At about 11 p.m., Bankman-Fried posted a tweet announcing that Binance was buying FTX, in what would amount to a rescue of the exchange.
Drappi said the response was “shock.”
The Binance agreement was non-binding. On Nov. 9, the rival exchange backed out of the deal, and CEO Changpeng Zhao said FTX’s “issues are beyond our control or ability to help.” Two days later FTX declared bankruptcy.
WATCH: Caroline Ellison details SBF’s involvement in running Alameda
GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.
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At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.
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Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction
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Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO, Circle
David A. Grogan | CNBC
Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.
The prospectus, filed with the SEC on Tuesday, lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.
JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are serving as lead underwriters, and the company is reportedly aiming for a valuation of up to $5 billion. It will trade under ticker symbol CRCL.
It marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance, including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York.
Circle reported $1.68 billion in revenue and reserve income in 2024, up from $1.45 billion in 2023 and $772 million in 2022. The company reported net income last year of about $156 million., down from $268 million a year earlier.
A successful IPO would make Circle one of the most prominent pure-play crypto companies to list on a U.S. exchange. Coinbase went public through a direct listing in 2021 and has a market cap of about $44 billion.
Circle will be trying to hit the public markets at a volatile moment for tech stocks, with the Nasdaq having just wrapped up its steepest quarterly drop since 2022. The tech IPO market has been mostly dry for over three years, though there are signs of life. Online lender Klarna, digital health company Hinge Health and ticketing marketplace StubHub have all filed their prospectuses recently. Late last week, artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave held the biggest IPO for a U.S. venture-backed tech company since 2021. But the company scaled back the offering and the stock had a disappointing first two days of trading before rebounding on Tuesday.
Circle is best known as the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.
Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation and makes up about 26% of the total market cap for stablecoins, behind Tether‘s 67% dominance. Its market cap has grown 36% this year, however, compared with Tether’s 5% growth.
The company’s push into public markets reflects a broader moment for the crypto industry, which is enjoying political favor under a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration. The stablecoin sector specifically has been ramping up as the industry gains confidence that the crypto market will get its first piece of U.S. legislation passed and implemented this year, focusing on stablecoins. President Donald Trump has said he hopes lawmakers will send stablecoin legislation to his desk before Congress’s August recess.
Stablecoins’ growth could have investment implications for crypto exchanges like Robinhood and Coinbase as they become a bigger part of crypto trading and cross-border transfers. Coinbase also has an agreement with Circle to share 50% of the revenue of its USDC stablecoin, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company’s most recent earnings call that it has a “stretch goal to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin.”
The stablecoin market has grown about 11% so far this year and about 47% in the past year, and has become a “systemically important” part of the crypto market, according to Bernstein. Historically, digital assets in this sector have been used for trading and as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi), and crypto investors watch them closely for evidence of demand, liquidity and activity in the market.
After its meteoric rise in the global auto industry last year, the Chinese EV giant is off to a hot start in 2025. BYD sold over one million EVs and plug-in hybrids in the first three months of the year. Even more impressive, BYD’s overseas sales doubled to start the year as it expands into new markets. With new EVs arriving, some predict BYD could see even more growth this year.
BYD’s overseas sales are surging as new EVs arrive
BYD sold 377,420 new energy vehicles (NEVs) last month alone. Like most Chinese automakers, BYD reports NEV sales, including plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and fully electric vehicles (EVs).
Of the 371,419 passenger vehicles BYD sold in March, 166,109 were EVs, and the other 205,310 were PHEVs. Combined, BYD’s sales were up 23% compared to last year.
BYD’s Dynasty and Ocean series accounted for 350,615, while its luxury Denza brand sold 12,620, Fang Cheng Bao had 8,051, and its ultra-luxury Yangwang brand sold another 133 models.
Through the first three months of 2025, BYD sold over one million (1,000,804) NEVs. That’s up 60% from the 626,263 sold in Q1 2024. Fully electric models accounted for 416,388 while PHEV sales reached 569,710, an increase of 39% and 76% from last year, respectively.
BYD’s overseas sales reached a new record last month, with 72,723 vehicles sold in markets outside of China. Through March, BYD has sold over 206,000 NEVs overseas, more than double (+110%) the number it sold last year.
BYD has made a name for itself with ultra-low-cost EVs like the Seagull, which starts at under $10,000 in China. In overseas markets, like Mexico, it’s sold as the Dolphin Mini and starts at around 358,800 pesos, or around $20,000.
The world’s largest EV maker is quickly expanding into new segments with pickup trucks, smart SUVs, luxury models, and electric supercars rolling out.
Last week, BYD launched the Yangwang U7, its first ultra-luxury electric sedan. With four electric motors, the U7 packs 1,287 horsepower, good for a 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) sprint in just 2.9 seconds. It also has up to 720 km (447 miles) CLTC driving range.
The Porsche Panamera-size EV is loaded with BYD’s top-tier “God’s Eye” A advanced driving assistance system, DiPilot 600, and a host of other premium features. All of that, and it starts at just just 628,000 yuan ($87,700).
In Europe, BYD is aggressively expanding with new vehicles tailored to buyers in the region, like the Sealion 7 midsize SUV and Atto 2. It’s also expected to launch the low-cost Seagull EV in Europe later this year or early 2026 as the “Dolphin Surf.”
According to S&P Global Mobility, BYD’s sales are expected to double in Europe this year to around 186,000. By 2029, that number could reach 400,000 or more.
BYD outsold Honda and Nissan in 2024. As it aims to sell 5.5 million vehicles this year, BYD could be on track to surpass Ford in global sales this year. BYD also aims to sell over 800,000 EVs overseas in 2025, double the number it sold last year.
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