Gary Wang
Summary
Zixiao 'Gary' Wang is the co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer of FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed in November 2022 following the discovery of an $8 billion shortfall caused by the misappropriation of customer funds to affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research. Wang pleaded guilty in December 2022 to four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy, served as a principal cooperating witness against former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, and was sentenced in November 2024 to time served with three years of supervised release and $11 billion in forfeiture obligations.
Connected Entities
1 entities- + 1 more
Timeline(11 events)
2015-01-01
Gary Wang graduates from MIT with a degree in mathematics and computer science and joins Google Flights.
2017-01-01
Wang leaves Google and joins Alameda Research, the quantitative trading firm co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried.
2019-01-01
Wang and Bankman-Fried co-found FTX cryptocurrency exchange; Wang serves as CTO.
2019-07-31
Wang and Nishad Singh add the 'allow_negative' flag to FTX's database at Bankman-Fried's direction, enabling Alameda Research's hidden unlimited credit line from customer funds.
2022-11-08
FTX experiences a liquidity crisis following a CoinDesk report revealing Alameda's FTT-heavy balance sheet and a subsequent Binance announcement to sell its FTT holdings.
2022-11-11
FTX, FTX US, and Alameda Research file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Sam Bankman-Fried resigns as CEO.
2022-12-18
Wang pleads guilty in the Southern District of New York to wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit commodities fraud. SEC simultaneously charges Wang with defrauding FTX equity investors.
2023-10-04
Wang takes the stand as the first cooperating witness at Sam Bankman-Fried's federal criminal trial, testifying for approximately three days about the code-based mechanisms used to misappropriate customer funds.
2023-11-02
Sam Bankman-Fried is convicted on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy following Wang's and other cooperating witnesses' testimony.
2024-03-28
Sam Bankman-Fried is sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.
2024-11-20
Judge Lewis Kaplan sentences Wang to time served and three years of supervised release; Wang is ordered to forfeit $11 billion jointly with co-defendants. The SEC separately obtains final consent judgments imposing an eight-year officer-and-director bar.
Decision Log
- hash: 4bTo7dwVKzTD4gotFi6V7DP3imh9eemsEtC8uzZ8zxMf
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain and source URLs are archived via the Internet Archive.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/30/2026, 7:10:57 PM
last updated: 5/30/2026, 7:10:59 PM
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