Legal filings or court announcements

FTX Co-Founder Gary Wang Avoids Prison After Testifying Against Sam Bankman-Fried

Nov 20, 2024, 03:50 PM

Gary Wang, whose full name is Zixiao 'Gary' Wang, co-founder and former chief technology officer of FTX, was spared prison time by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on November 20 due to his extensive cooperation in the fraud case against the cryptocurrency exchange. Wang, who held a 17% equity stake in FTX and a 10% stake in Alameda Research, had pleaded guilty in December 2022 to fraud charges, including wire fraud, commodities fraud, and securities fraud, after FTX's collapse, which involved the misappropriation of approximately $8 billion in customer funds. He provided critical testimony against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried during his trial, revealing that he wrote the software code that allowed Alameda Research to divert FTX customer funds and receive special treatment on the exchange. Judge Kaplan praised Wang's cooperation, which included helping design software to detect securities fraud, and sentenced him to time served with three years of supervised release. The fraud at FTX is considered among the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.