Sam Bankman-Fried’s spending at the collapsed FTX cryptocurrency exchange was not “frivolous”, his defence lawyer argued in a courtroom cross-examination of former executive Nishad Singh. 

Bankman-Fried is on trial in New York on criminal charges of defrauding investors, lenders and customers at his exchange and funnelling billions of dollars to his affiliated crypto trading firm. Singh, FTX’s former head of engineering, is the last of three central witnesses co-operating with federal prosecutors in the trial.

FTX had promoted itself widely before failing last November. Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s lead defence lawyer, said in court on Tuesday that the prosecution had used Singh’s testimony the day before to depict billions of dollars that FTX committed to celebrity sponsorship and other expenses as “all reckless and frivolous”.