The special privileges granted to the hedge fund, Alameda Research, included a $65 billion line of credit, several orders of size bigger than the amount other users were able to borrow, according to Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex-colleague

Sam Bankman-Fried’s ex-colleague, Gary Wang, testified on Thursday at the FTX crypto currency exchange founder’s fraud trial that SBF told him to give a hedge fund they co-owned special trading privileges on the exchange.

The special privileges granted to the hedge fund, Alameda Research, included a $65 billion line of credit, several orders of size bigger than the amount other users were able to borrow, Wang said. Alameda had withdrawn $8 billion from FTX by the time of the exchange’s insolvency in November last year, he testified.

It withdrew so much that FTX was not able to repay customers who were attempting to withdraw, Wang, FTX’s former CTO, said on the stand. He further said that SBF had instructed him to apply the changes giving Alameda special privileges.

Wang is the first of three former close co-workers of SBF to testify at the trial, which started on Tuesday. All three have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and consented to cooperate with prosecutors.

Bankman-Fried’s trial kicked off nearly a year after FTX froze customer withdrawals and declared bankruptcy in a dramatic failure that shocked financial markets and left its founder’s fame in tatters.

Federal prosecutors say the 31-year-old former billionaire stole billions of dollars in FTX customer deposits to plug losses at Alameda, buy real estate and donate to U.S. political candidates.

SBF has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer, Mark Cohen, said in his opening statement that cooperating witnesses like Wang may be “spinning” Bankman-Fried’s decisions they agreed with at the time as “sinister.”

Earlier on Thursday, Matt Huang, the head of a crypto-focused hedge fund, Paradigm, which invested in FTX, said he was told Alameda received “no preferential treatment” on the platform.

Huang said he was concerned about links between the two companies, but said Paradigm was “assured that they would become less linked over time.”

Paradigm invested $278 million in FTX starting in 2021, but has now written off the investment entirely, he added.