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Founded in 1999, quantitative trading firm Jane Street has grown to become a multibillion-dollar Wall Street behemoth. The company employs thousands of employees and, while not required to file public financial statements, it disclosed $7.8 billion in revenue from trading $17 trillion worth of securities after the 2020 fiscal year.
However, perhaps the most exciting thing about the New York-headquartered company is the hiring of the five workers who went on to participate in Sam Bankman-Fried’s ill-fated FTX empire.
- It employs Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) himself and Caroline Ellison, the criminally charged CEO of Alameda Research.
- Jane Street also employs Duncan Rheingans-Yoo, and SBF’s former romantic partner, Xiaoyun “Lily” Zhang. The pair received a combined $400 million dollars from SBF.
- The company also employs SBF’s brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried. Gabe then stopped making political donations through non-profit organizations ostensibly funded by the SBF, namely ‘Guard Against the Pandemic’ and ‘Building a Stronger Future’.
According to the bankruptcy filings, substantially all of the money that SBF used to pay these people came from the deposits of FTX’s customers.
Although these people met on Jane Street, they were all gone by the time they started working at FTX. There is no evidence that Jane Street was involved in their FTX-related wrongdoing.
SBF invited his former partner to join him at FTX
After joining Jane Street in 2013, SBF claims to have specialized in trading international ETFs. He started as an apprentice at Jane Street and then joined as a full-time grocer after college.
However, he maintains a close relationship with his former co-workers. For example, his brother became a merchant and it is publicly known that he was romantically involved with at least two people: Lily and Caroline. Shortly before the collapse of the Bankman-Fried company, Alameda Research “invested” an additional $300 million on top of an earlier $100 million investment into Bahamas-based Modulo Capital (not to be confused with the giant Brazilian conglomerate Módulo).
Former SBF colleagues at Jane Street, Xiaoyun “Lily” Zhang and Duncan Rheingans-Yoo operate Modulo Capital. Casting doubts about this clear relationship, Modulo Capital establishes its headquarters in the same Albany resort as the private residence of the SBF.
Read more: This website allows FTX customers to file official fraud reports
SBF’s ex-girlfriend and former CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, left Jane Street to join its outlaw operation in March 2018. In a Forbes feature, she falsely describes her departure from Jane Street as SBF recruited him over coffee in California.
Jane Street as a company has not publicly commented on the activities of its five former employees. Again, the Protos are not aware of any evidence linking Jane Street to the FTX glitch. Head of institutional strategy Mina Nguyen said agencies remain confident in Jane Street’s expertise in legitimate participation in the digital asset industry.
Crypto is becoming more important to Jane Street
In 2017 and with almost two decades of experience in market making, Jane Street started trading cryptocurrencies. It is expanding its market making operations on the world’s crypto exchanges and order payout flows for digital asset trading on platforms such as Robinhood. It has also started offering liquidity and trading on decentralized exchanges.
Predictably, as crypto became more profitable, the company has expanded its operations. Indeed, last week, trader Jane Street Turner Batty called digital assets a “clear growth area” for the company.
While the company doesn’t describe how much money it makes specifically trading digital assets, it does produce annual and quarterly reports like any other company. However, it limits the visibility of its reports to debt and equity holders.
Naturally, its digital asset-related activities come with additional costs, such as hiring people to handle complex accounting and back-office functions. Dozens of Jane Street employees trade digital assets or handle complex taxes, custody, and record keeping.
We’ve reached out to Jane Street for comment and will update this story if and when it does.
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