Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, sought to distance himself from allegations of fraud in his first public appearance since his company’s collapse. He did not knowingly mix client funds at FTX with funds from his own trading firm, Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried gave an interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit despite advice from his lawyers.
The liquidity crisis at FTX arose after Bankman-Fried secretly transferred $10 billion in FTX client funds to Alameda Research, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. At least $1 billion in customer funds has gone missing, the people said. Bankman-Fried told Reuters that the company was not “secretly” switching, but misinterpreted the “confusing internal labelling.”
FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO on Nov. 11 after traders took $6 billion off the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance called off a rescue attempt.
“There was a serious problem”
“By the end of Nov. 6, we were merging all the data… which of course had to be part of the dashboards I’ve been monitoring… and when we looked at that, there was a serious problem,” said Bankman —Fried today Bankman-Fried added that he has “never attempted to commit fraud” and that he personally does not believe he is criminally responsible. “The real answer is I don’t focus on it. There will be a time and place for me to think about myself and my own future,” he said.
Influential political donor
The implosion of FTX marked a stunning fall from grace for the 30-year-old entrepreneur, sparking a cryptocurrency boom to a net worth Forbes estimated at $26.5 billion a year ago. After founding FTX in 2019, he became an influential political donor and pledged to donate most of his earnings to charity.
Since FTX filed for bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried has distanced himself from the image he has projected in media interviews and on Capitol Hill, telling a Vox reporter that his advocacy for a crypto regulatory framework is “just PR” and his discussions of industry ethics are at least partly a facade.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
