FTX employee gave Delaware Dems $20,000 contribution

An engineering director with now-defunct crypto-giant FTX, accused of losing billions of dollars in client investments, gave $20,000 to the Delaware Democratic State Committee before the midterm elections, according to a state campaign finance report.

The connection between Nishad Singh and Delaware Democrats is unclear, but he electronically transferred money Oct. 17 from the Bahamas residence where he lived while working as engineering director for FTX – a cryptocurrency exchange launched by Sam Bankman-Fried. 

“We’re not aware of a direct connection,” said Travis Williams, executive director of the Delaware Democratic Party. 

Williams said the party has contacted its attorney on what steps to take regarding the $20,000 donation. “We’ll see how this plays out,” he said. 

Nationally, campaign finance reports show that Bankman-Fried donated $40 million to Democrats before the midterm elections, making him the second largest donor following billionaire George Soros, who gave $170 million, according to a Jan. 4 CNBC article.

Singh’s contribution to the Delaware Democratic State Committee was made about a month before FTX’s $32 million collapse, prompting the eventual arrest of Bankman-Fried Dec. 12 in the Bahamas. He pleaded not guilty Jan. 3 in a New York court to two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, two counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. He is also charged with conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and commit campaign finance violations, each of which carries a maximum sentence of five years.  

Bankman-Fried is out on $250 million bond and under house arrest at his parent’s home in Palo Alto, Calif. His Stanford University law professor parents also own a $16 million Bahamian property, according to published reports, part of $121 million in real-estate purchases connected to FTX.

Two of his associates have already taken a plea deal to fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, and have agreed to cooperate with the government’s investigation.

Gary Wang, 29, former FTX chief technology officer, and Caroline Ellison, 28, former chief executive officer for Alameda Research, are out on $250,000 bonds.

Alameda was a crypto hedge fund owned by Wang and Bankman-Fried and run by Ellison. A Securities and Exchange Commission complaint alleges that, by manipulating the price of FTT – an FTX-issued crypto token – Bankman-Fried and Ellison caused the valuation of Alameda’s FTT holdings to be inflated, which in turn caused the value of collateral on Alameda’s balance sheet to be overstated, and misled investors about FTX’s risk exposure.

According to the complaint, between 2019 and 2022, Ellison, at the direction of Bankman-Fried, furthered the scheme by manipulating the price of FTT by purchasing large quantities on the open market to prop up its price. FTT served as collateral for undisclosed loans by FTX of its customers’ assets to Alameda.

In court, Ellison apologized for her role in the scheme and said she knew what she was doing was illegal, according to a transcript of the unpublicized hearing released by the Wall Street Journal.