According to a Bloomberg report on February 17, Nishad Singh, who was the co-founder and former chief engineer of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX, is negotiating a plea deal with the prosecution. According to the article, the terms of the agreement, which require Singh, 27, to plead guilty to offenses related to the bankruptcy of FTX, have not yet been finalized.

Gary Wang, a former FTX chief technology officer, and Caroline Ellison, a former Alameda chief executive, who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in December after reaching plea bargains with prosecutors. Singh would be following in his footsteps if he did the same. Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, former CEO of FTX, has pleaded not guilty to all eight federal charges against him and currently resides in California with his parents.

Singh, a childhood friend of SBF’s brother Gabriel, was the inventor of some of the FTX software and one of SBF’s housemates in the Bahamian penthouse. Gabriel had known Singh since they were children. Shortly after the FTX failure, SBF revealed to a Vox reporter that Singh felt “scared” as well as “embarrassed and sorry” about what happened.

Singh was the FTX leader to disappear from sight the longest, but he made his reappearance during the first week of January at the United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York to participate in a prof session. A person may be eligible for limited immunity during a proposition session to communicate his experience to prosecutors.

Singh’s legal troubles don’t just revolve around the federal criminal charges against him. In a class action lawsuit filed on February 14 against venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, as well as private equity firms Thoma Bravo and Paradigm, Singh and other members of FTX’s inner circle were subpoenaed to testify.

Ellison and Wang have already settled charges brought to them by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, but Singh may also be subject to actions taken by the aforementioned authorities in the future. Campaign finance offenses are one of the things SBF is accused of doing wrong. Singh was also reportedly a large donor to Democratic politicians and causes in the United States, having donated $9.3 million since 2020.