Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried will take the stand on Thursday

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, is expected to take the stand on Thursday, defense lawyers said.

During a teleconference on Wednesday, Bankman-Fried's lawyer Mark Cohen confirmed his client will testify and that his testimony will probably take the entire day on Thursday, before going into cross examination on Friday.

Bankman-Fried's decision comes after weeks of speculation about if he would actually testify. Analysts had seemed split on whether he would and have said that if the former billionaire does decide to testify, it would take a few days. 

Bankman-Fried's defense has seemingly struggled before the trial to get certain witnesses on the stand.

Expert witnesses

All of the seven expert witnesses Bankman-Fried proposed to call, for example, were denied by Judge Kaplan, though Kaplan left open the door for him to call on four as rebuttals to government witnesses. Many of Bankman-Fried's motions in limine, which concerned which arguments and which evidence could be offered at trial, have also been denied by the judge. 

The former FTX CEO faces decades in prison if he is convicted on a slew of charges, including fraud, over allegations that he and other FTX executives used billions of customer assets to make their own failed investments. FTX filed for bankruptcy protection late last year.