'Old-fashioned embezzlement' Where did all FTX's money go under Bankman-Fried?

Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency FTX, presided exchange over a spectacular collapse that cost his customers billions of dollars.

- Edward Helmore

He argues in court filings that anyone owed money by FTX "will eventually be paid in full". The US government says he's living in a fantasy land.

Last week, FTX's caretaker John Ray III, appointed to oversee the company's bankruptcy proceedings, reminded the court that his predecessor had masterminded a "colossal fraud”, lived a "life of delusion", and called Bankman-Fried's lawyers' claim that no one had been harmed "categorically, callously and demonstrably false".

Bankman-Fried faces sentencing today after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy to launder money in the multibillion-dollar collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange.

If given the maximum penalty, he would face 100 years in prison. His lawyers have asked for a six-year sentence. The US government wants to see the 32-year-old ex-CEO, who defrauded his own customers out of $8bn (£6.3bn), sentenced to 40 to 50 years.

As he awaits sentencing, key questions still remain: what happened to all the money from a business that was valued at its peak at $32bn and what, if anything, can creditors expect to get back?

FTX: new technology, oldfashioned embezzlement

The crypto entrepreneur laid a smokescreen, spending millions of customer funds on his lifestyle, drawing in politicians and celebrities with donations and endorsement deals, and fronting a pseudo-philosophy of "effective altruism" that boiled down to the greater the profits, the greater the good.