CoinVoice has recently learned that on October 7, according to The Block, FTX co-founder Gary Wang testified in the SBF trial that in November 2022, FTX's customer balances were equal to the assets held in the hot wallet, but with an important exception: a hidden $8 billion liability called "fiat@."

As customers began withdrawing assets from FTX in November 2022, SBF asked Gary Wang to calculate how much money Alameda Research needed to deposit on the exchange to cover the outflows. Wang testified under direct questioning by government prosecutors on the fourth day of SBF’s trial last week, saying that the sum of FTX customer balances, minus Alameda Research’s account, matched the assets in FTX’s hot wallets. However, unbeknownst to him, there was a problem with his calculations.

He testified that he got the full picture only when SBF asked him if he had included “our Korean friends” in his calculations. Confused, Wang turned to another former FTX executive, Nishad Singh, who told Wang that “Korean friends” actually referred to the $8 billion “fiat@” vulnerability at the heart of FTX’s debacle.

The fiat@ account balance in FTX's internal database has been reallocated to an account named "seoyuncharles88@gmail.com," which was granted special privileges so that Alameda Research would not have to pay interest on the credit line. Wang also confirmed that SBF knew that FTX's financial situation was more transparent to the public and investors, while Alameda's financial situation was not. [Original link]