
Several of Bankman-Fried's former colleagues and friends will testify against the one-time crypto mogul following plea deals they struck with the U.S. Department of Justice, including his former romantic partner Caroline Ellison and childhood friend Gary Wang, who were both deeply involved in the daily workings of both FTX and its quant-driven trading shop, Alameda Research. Another two individuals, who have yet to publicly name themselves, may testify if granted immunity, suggesting they may also be tied to the exchange. Prosecutors also announced Monday that they plan to call former FTX customers from all over the world and investors as witnesses during the trial.
Caroline Ellison is among the most heavily anticipated witnesses expected to take the stand against Bankman-Fried. As FTX's one-time head of Alameda Research, she can speak to the companies' relationship and the amount of FTT it held, court documents show. She also had a personal relationship with the founder of FTX. She's one of the few insiders who actually knew what was going on inside FTX.
Brian Kim, an expert in data analytics and forensics, may speak to internal messages between Bankman-Fried and his employees at FTX and its sister companies. If he was called to the stand, he may testify on 'the content, metadata, and file paths associated with Slack data and Google documents' that allegedly prove Bankman-Fried instructed his employees to destroy evidence of his companies' alleged fraud. The court filings show that the data would include the fields (of documents and messages) listing the author, custodian, and viewer, as well as the content created, modified, viewed, saved, and/or deleted dates. As Bishop has said, if he is called to testify, his focus would be on rebutting DOJ testimony.
The jury will be led by Andrew Di Wu, a professor of finance and technology at the University of Michigan, who will give evidence to the jury about how cryptocurrency exchanges, and the blockchain technologies that undergird them, operate. As part of his testimony, he may also explain the unique complexities in operating centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, particularly those with cross-border operations, and the difficulties in processing transactions in multiple fiat and cryptocurrencies, a court filing said. Wu's testimony could come in response to an FBI agent testifying for the prosecution.