New York, New York - Jurors began deliberations in the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, the one-time cryptocurrency golden boy who is accused of massive fraud by stealing customer money as he built his empire.

The month-long federal trial has been an ordeal for Bankman-Fried after some of his closest associates testified that he was key to all the decisions that saw eight billion dollars vanish from his FTX trading platform.

Bankman-Fried (31) was, until late last year, a poster boy for the crypto industry and estimated to be worth $26 billion by Fortune magazine before his empire collapsed spectacularly.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate has been charged with seven counts of fraud and could face decades behind bars if the jury unanimously finds him guilty.

Justice UN experts urge halt to imminent nitrogen gas execution in Alabama

"Now it's your turn to decide who to believe," Judge Lewis Kaplan told the jury.

If the jurors - nine women and three men - do not reach a verdict on Thursday, they will resume their deliberations in the New York courthouse on Monday.

Judge Kaplan told the jury they could deliberate overtime on Thursday to come to their decision and that he would provide them dinner and transportation if they stayed late.

In closing arguments, prosecutors portrayed the defendant as an extremely smart man consumed by greed who knew what he was doing when FTX funds were secretly funneled to his personal hedge fund.

"Find him guilty," prosecutor Danielle Sassoon told the jury earlier on Thursday. "He was ambitious" and had "the arrogance to think that he could get away with a fraud," she added.

The defense said their client had acted in "good faith" and was overtaken by circumstances and the financial ineptitude of close associates who testified against him to gain leniency from prosecutors.

The star witness in the trial was Bankman-Fried's former associate and on-and-off-again girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, who told the jury that they had stolen "around $14 billion" from clients of the FTX cryptocurrency trading platform before it collapsed into bankruptcy late last year.

Justice Alex Jones sues The Onion and Sandy Hook families over Infowars buyout

The money was used to prop up Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's personal hedge fund for which he picked Ellison as CEO.

In November 2022, the FTX empire imploded, unable to cope with massive withdrawal requests from customers panicked to learn that some of FTX's funds had been committed to risky operations by Alameda.

Former crypto tycoon Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty Thursday by a New York jury on all seven counts of fraud, embezzlement, and criminal conspiracy.

The panel reached its decision after five weeks of trial, and Bankman-Fried now faces up to 110 years behind bars.

Sentencing will take place at a later date.