Yesterday evening, after a day of dramatic testimony in Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial in New York, Philip Davis, the prime minister of the Bahamas, stood up at his table at the fine-dining restaurant Nobu to deliver a toast.
Bankman-Fried’s company, FTX, had its headquarters in the Bahamas, and was the most consequential player in country’s crypto ecosystem. But Davis’ message was simple: forget about FTX.“The only thing the FTX debacle did was embolden crypto critics,” he said. “The digital asset world is here to stay.”
Held at the luxury Atlantis resort on Paradise Island, north of Nassau, the dinner marked the opening of D3 Bahamas, a conference put on by the Bahamian government, which is updating its crypto regulations.
But FTX isn’t entirely forgotten. Among the new rules in the Bahamas is a new set of consumer protection measures, including requirements around the segregation of customer and corporate assets, a protocol FTX and its sibling company, Alameda, failed to follow, helping to enable the alleged fraud. The Bahamas claims the update is a reflection of developments in the cryptosphere, but it’s clearly also a reflection of lessons learned from FTX.
“We are committed to ensuring this aspect of our financial services industry keeps good actors in and bad actors out,” said Davis, before raising his glass.