Nishad Singh

Nishad Singh
Born:	1995 United States
Charges:	Conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate campaign finance law
Sentence:	Time served, 3 years supervised release (no prison)
Facility:	N/A
Status:	Sentenced to time served (no prison)

Nishad Singh (born 1995) is an American software engineer who served as director of engineering at FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. He was one of a small group of executives charged after the exchange collapsed in November 2022. Singh pleaded guilty to six federal counts in February 2023, including wire fraud and a campaign finance conspiracy.

He then cooperated with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York and testified against Bankman-Fried at trial. On October 30, 2024, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced him to time served and three years of supervised release. He received no prison time.

Kaplan called Singh's cooperation "remarkable" and said he was persuaded that Singh's role in the fraud was far more limited than that of Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison, who ran the affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research. The judge noted that Singh appeared to have been out of the loop on the central fraud until roughly two months before FTX failed. Singh was ordered to forfeit $11 billion.

Background

Singh grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended Crystal Springs Uplands School, a private preparatory school in Hillsborough, California.

He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and computer sciences in 2017. After a brief research stint at Berkeley, he worked as a software engineer at Facebook on applied machine learning during the second half of 2017.

Singh knew Bankman-Fried before he entered the cryptocurrency business. His older brother had worked alongside Bankman-Fried at Jane Street Capital, a quantitative trading firm. That connection brought the two men into contact. In December 2017, Singh left Facebook to join Alameda Research, the trading firm Bankman-Fried had started earlier that year.

At Alameda the team was small. Singh built and maintained trading software and became one of a handful of engineers Bankman-Fried relied on. He was close enough to the founder to be counted among his inner circle, the group of young executives who later shared a penthouse in the Bahamas after FTX moved its headquarters to Nassau.

Role at FTX

FTX launched in 2019. Singh became its director of engineering. The job placed him near the center of the company's technology. He worked on the exchange's core systems and was one of a few people with deep access to the code that ran the platform and moved customer money.

That access mattered later. Prosecutors said FTX customer deposits were quietly funneled to Alameda Research, which used the money for its own trading, loans, real estate, and political spending. The transfers ran through software permissions and accounting entries rather than ordinary loans. Singh's engineering role gave him a clear view of how the systems worked, which is part of why his account carried weight once he agreed to cooperate.

Singh also held an equity stake in FTX. On paper that stake was worth a large sum during the period when the company was valued in the tens of billions. When the exchange failed, the equity became worthless.

He was a political donor as well. During the 2022 election cycle Singh gave millions of dollars to candidates, committees, and causes. Prosecutors later said those contributions were funded with FTX money and were structured to hide their true source, which formed the basis for the campaign finance charge he pleaded to.

The Collapse of FTX

FTX came apart over a few days in November 2022. A report on Alameda's balance sheet raised questions about how much of its value rested on FTX's own token. A rival exchange said it would sell its holdings of that token. Customers rushed to pull their money out. FTX could not meet the withdrawals, halted them, and filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022. Bankman-Fried resigned as chief executive.

Federal investigators moved quickly. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission all opened cases. Within weeks they had identified Singh as a senior insider with detailed knowledge of the company's operations.

By his own account, Singh learned the full scope of the missing customer funds only late in the company's life. At sentencing the judge accepted that Singh was unaware of the core fraud until about two months before the collapse, a point that separated him from longer-running participants in the scheme.

Guilty Plea and Cooperation

On February 28, 2023, Singh pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to six counts:

• Conspiracy to commit wire fraud
• Wire fraud
• Conspiracy to commit commodities fraud
• Conspiracy to commit securities fraud
• Conspiracy to commit money laundering
• Conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate federal campaign finance law

He was the third member of Bankman-Fried's senior circle to plead guilty and cooperate, after Gary Wang, an FTX co-founder, and Caroline Ellison, who had led Alameda Research. Ryan Salame, another FTX executive, faced his own case and later received a prison term.

Singh's cooperation began right away. He met with prosecutors, walked them through how FTX's systems handled customer money, and helped them understand the technical record. Because he had built and maintained much of that software, he could explain the mechanics of the transfers in plain terms.

He testified at Bankman-Fried's trial in the fall of 2023. On the stand he described the company's finances, the movement of customer funds to Alameda, and his own role in the political donations. His testimony was part of the government's case that ended in Bankman-Fried's conviction on all counts.

Sentencing

Singh was sentenced on October 30, 2024. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan gave him time served and three years of supervised release. He went to no prison.

The statutory exposure had been steep. The counts together carried a maximum of decades in prison. Prosecutors had urged leniency based on his cooperation, and the judge agreed that a sentence without incarceration was warranted.

Kaplan described Singh's assistance to the government as "remarkable." He drew a line between Singh and others in the case. He said Singh's involvement in the fraud was far more limited than Bankman-Fried's, and more limited than Ellison's, who had been close to the conduct for a long time. In the judge's account, Singh stayed outside the central scheme until roughly two months before FTX collapsed. Kaplan told him, "You did the right thing."

The court ordered Singh to forfeit $11 billion. The figure reflected the scale of the fraud rather than money Singh personally held, and forfeited proceeds across the FTX cases were directed toward recovering funds for victims.

The outcome stood in sharp contrast to Bankman-Fried, who was convicted at trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Both men were tied to the same fraud, but cooperation, timing, and the judge's reading of their relative roles produced very different results.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who is Nishad Singh?

Nishad Singh is an American software engineer who served as director of engineering at FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange founded by Sam Bankman-Fried. He pleaded guilty to six federal counts in 2023 and cooperated with prosecutors against Bankman-Fried.

Q: Did Nishad Singh go to prison?

No. On October 30, 2024, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Singh to time served and three years of supervised release. He received no prison time, which the judge attributed to his cooperation and his more limited role in the fraud.

Q: What did Nishad Singh plead guilty to?

On February 28, 2023, Singh pleaded guilty to six counts: conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to defraud the United States and violate federal campaign finance law.

Q: What was Nishad Singh's role at FTX?

Singh was director of engineering. He worked on the exchange's core systems and was one of a small number of people with deep access to the code that ran the platform and moved customer funds.

Q: Why did Nishad Singh avoid prison?

Judge Kaplan called Singh's cooperation "remarkable" and found that his involvement in the fraud was far more limited than that of Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison. The judge accepted that Singh was out of the loop on the core fraud until about two months before FTX collapsed.

Q: Did Nishad Singh testify against Sam Bankman-Fried?

Yes. Singh testified at Bankman-Fried's 2023 trial, describing FTX's finances, the movement of customer money to Alameda Research, and his own role in political donations. Bankman-Fried was convicted on all counts.

Q: How much was Nishad Singh ordered to forfeit?

The court ordered Singh to forfeit $11 billion. The amount reflected the scale of the fraud rather than money Singh personally held, with forfeited proceeds across the FTX cases directed toward victim recovery.