The prosecution of Singh by the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the civil actions brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are centre-stage.

Some media reports say that Singh has entered into a plea deal but we have been unable to verify that claim.

The SEC's civil action alleges "Singh knew or should have known that such statements were false and misleading. " The statements were made by Bankman-Fried when he said "that FTX was a safe crypto asset trading platform with sophisticated risk mitigation measures to protect customer assets and that Alameda was just another customer with no special privileges. " It is alleged that Singh "Singh created software code that allowed FTX customer funds to be diverted to Alameda Research." It is also alleged that Singh was an active participant in the scheme to deceive FTX’s investors.

Almeda Research was a company connected to FTX and it was to that company that large sums of what the SEC calls "investors" money was sent. The term "investor" seems out of place.

Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement said "A pillar of our securities laws is that when companies and their representatives decide to speak on an issue, they can’t lie to investors on matters that are core to their investment decisions. That’s true when it comes to crypto asset securities, just as it is in connection with any other securities.”

So, the SEC considers crypto assets to be "securities" and those that buy them "investors."

Good to know.