Those circumstances likely enabled Bankman-Fried’s cardinal sin. Within days of FTX’s first signs of weakness, it became clear that the exchange had been funneling customer assets to Alameda for use in trading, lending and investing activities. On Nov. 12, Reuters made the stunning report that as much as $10 billion in user funds had been sent from FTX to Alameda. At the time, it was believed that as little as $2 billion of those funds had disappeared after being sent to Alameda. Now the losses appear to have been much higher.