Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX Exchange and Alameda Research, testified in his criminal fraud trial and admitted that he had no knowledge of cryptocurrencies when he started Alameda in 2017. CNN Business covered his testimony live for approximately seven hours, during which he revealed that he had no idea how cryptocurrencies worked and only knew that they could be traded. Bankman-Fried originally founded Alameda with a 20% chance of success, but his plans changed when the number of customers started to increase. He also expressed concerns about Alameda's lack of hedging strategies and wrote a memo suggesting the company should shut down operations due to "serious risks."