Former FTX chief re-requests bail

The former head of the American cryptocurrency exchange FTX has filed a second request for release from prison on bail with the condition of house arrest. The first motion on behalf of the lawyer was denied. The judge then said that her experience indicates a high probability of the Bankman-Freed flight. Back then, $250,000 was offered as collateral.

Consideration of the repeated application will be considered by the judges on January 17. The SBF has received formal charges from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In addition, the accusation came from the prosecutor's office of the Southern District of New York.

In sum, Sam Bankman-Fried faces a serious sentence. The court can put the swindler on 165 years of imprisonment. Now he is in prison in the Bahamas while state authorities await extradition from the United States.

A hearing regarding the Sam Bankman-Freed case and US extradition has been scheduled for February 8. Until then, the SBF will be in Fox Hill custody in Nassau, Bahamas.

The correctional facility is notorious for being rated as "harsh, overcrowded and infested with rats," quite a contrast to Sam's lifestyle a month ago. However, it was previously reported that Bankman-Freed was in good spirits after his first night at Fox Hill.

Despite this, the SBF lawyer said that his client needed a special vegan diet and could not be in prison due to taking certain medications. Bankman-Fried was arrested on Tuesday after repeatedly receiving allegations in the cryptocurrency enthusiast community.

It is noteworthy that before the arrest, SBF lived with nine other FTX executives in the Bahamas, in a $40,000,000 resort complex in Albany.

SBF is accused of implementing a pre-arranged fraudulent scheme with the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange. According to available information, he used the platform's client funds in order to close the debt obligations of his second company, Alameda Research. This resulted in FTX not allowing their clients to withdraw financial savings.

After the financial difficulties of FTX became known, the final nail in this situation was hammered by Changpeng Zhao, the owner of Binance. The Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange initially wanted to take over FTX, but subsequently decided to sell all of its holdings of the US platform's native token, FTT.

This led to a rapid decline in the value of the coin. In a couple of days, it fell by 95%. At the time of writing, FTT quotes show a price of $1.03. In the near future, the token is very likely to fall below the $1 mark. Recall that at its highs, the coin was valued at $79 per unit, and before the collapse of FTX, it was $22.