Michael Hiltzik: Sam Bankman-Fried's seven guilty verdicts expose crypto as a swindle through and through
It took a federal court jury barely four hours Thursday to find crypto scam artist Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy.
He was undone partially by a crack team of federal prosecutors who laid out a clear, simple paint-by-numbers picture of his crimes for the jurors, but mostly by his own greed and arrogance. And also by the deceit fundamental to the cryptocurrency market itself.
The prosecutors strove to keep the jury focused on what Bankman-Fried had in common with fraudsters throughout history — the promise to marks that they will acquire riches beyond compare if they just ride along — rather than on the peculiarities of the crypto market.
"This is not about complicated issues of cryptocurrency," assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas
