SBF Directed Employees to Use the Auto-Delete Signal App Future to Avoid Regulatory Scrutiny

A. Use of Signal to Auto-Delete Messages

At trial, the evidence established that the defendant instructed employees to use Signal, an end-to-end encrypted messaging application, with an auto-delete feature enabled so as to prevent regulators from reviewing communications.

Specifically, Adam Yedidia testified that the defendant instructed employees to use Signal with a feature enabled that would automatically delete each message after a certain amount of time had elapsed since the message was sent. (Tr. 175). Bankman-Fried stated that “it was all downside for messages to be kept around” because “if regulators found something they didn’t like in those messages, that could be bad for the company.” (Tr. 176). Similarly, Ellison testified that the defendant “directed [them] to use the disappearing messaging setting on [their] Signal, meaning that all messages [they] sent in these conversations would disappear after seven days.” (Tr. 825). Bankman-Fried said that FTX and Alameda employees “should be very careful about what [they] put in writing” because “putting things in writing was one of the primary ways that financial firms got in legal trouble.” (Id.). After those directives, FTX and Alameda employees increasingly used Signal messages for “sensitive” communications. (Tr. 825-26). Government Exhibit 1083 is a chart of all of the Signal chats on Wang’s device that were set to auto-delete. The chart shows that many of the chats’ auto-delete function was set by the defendant.