NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Two months prior to the collapse of FTX, Prime Minister Philip Davis asked FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried to speak with his son regarding an NFT project he was consulting for, according to an email presented by prosecutors on Tuesday.
The email was presented as evidence by prosecutors in Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial in New York, according to a report by Coindesk. Recently Prime Minister Philip Davis refuted claims that Co-Founder of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried met with him to discuss paying off the country’s national debt. It has been alleged that Bankman-Fried started considering the idea of paying off The Bahamas’ national debt himself to enable the country to fix roads and build schools more easily, according to a book written by Michael Lewis on Bankman-Fried.
On Monday, former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh testified that Bankman-Fried had personally pushed for the now infamous $30 million penthouse in Albany that housed members of his inner circle—fellow effective altruists. According to Singh, the group of friends all wanted to live together after relocating FTX headquarters to the Bahamas, which led to a “substantial disagreement” over potential accommodations.
Bankman-Fried reportedly found The Bahamas to be an attractive location for FTX’s headquarters due to its regulatory framework, which held the potential to legitimize the cryptocurrency industry, as detailed in Lewis’ biography.
FTX was headquartered in The Bahamas, where Bankman-Fried was arrested in December 2022 and subsequently charged in connection with his management of the failed crypto exchange FTX, which suffered a liquidity crisis and subsequent bankruptcy.
