In addition to the other answers, I’d like to mention something that while comparatively minor in impact, is IMO strongest in “there’s no plausible innocent explanation for this”, which helps to paint a picture of what FTX internal culture must have been like: FTX published on their website how much they had in their insurance fund. This fund was supposed to protect customers from losses e.g. arising from other unrelated customers being unable to pay back their margin loans. The number they published was a complete fabrication, in no way informed by the actual size of the insurance fund (which was typically smaller): it was calculated based on daily trading volume and a random number generator.
There was a bunch of news coverage about this at the time, here is the first result I found on Google.
In addition to the other answers, I’d like to mention something that while comparatively minor in impact, is IMO strongest in “there’s no plausible innocent explanation for this”, which helps to paint a picture of what FTX internal culture must have been like: FTX published on their website how much they had in their insurance fund. This fund was supposed to protect customers from losses e.g. arising from other unrelated customers being unable to pay back their margin loans. The number they published was a complete fabrication, in no way informed by the actual size of the insurance fund (which was typically smaller): it was calculated based on daily trading volume and a random number generator.
There was a bunch of news coverage about this at the time, here is the first result I found on Google.