Sam Bankman-Fried, the former Chief Executive of bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, has been quite vocal about the fall of the company on social media platforms like Twitter. In fact, he has time and again apologized to users as well. The former FTX executive virtually stepped into the media spotlight from The Bahamas on Wednesday.
Interviewed by The New York Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin at the media house’s annual DealBook Summit, Sam Bankman-Fried—a.k.a. SBF—spoke on a host of subjects ranging from risk management and philanthropy to regulation, real-estate in the Bahamas, and everything else in between.
SBF admitted that he “screwed up” and did make major mistakes as the CEO of FTX. He asserted that he should’ve focused more on risk management and protecting customers. Nevertheless, he did claim that saw a chance of some customers, particularly those at FTX US, could become “whole.” He, however, was quick to add that hope with a big caveat and said that he couldn’t promise anything.
Commenting on the state of the FTX US’s solvency, he said,
“The US platform—the US regulated platform with American users—to my knowledge, that’s fully solvent. That’s fully funded and I believe that withdrawals could be opened up today and everyone could be made whole from that.”
The former FTX executive also added that he believed that FTX US derivatives and Ledger X, might “even be up and running right now.” LedgerX, as such, is a subsidiary of FTX. A day back, it was reportedly preparing to transfer $175 million toward its parent company’s bankruptcy proceedings, according to a Bloomberg report, that cited people familiar with the matter.
On Regulations, Philanthropy, Properties in The Bahamas
With respect to regulations, SBF said that FTX was engaged in cultivating a favorable public image similar to that of other large companies. He added,
“There’s a bunch of bullshit that regulated companies do to try and look good.”
On philanthropy, SBF claimed that his donations were “mostly for pandemic prevention.” He also asserted that it was “on both sides of the isles” and he did not view it as a partisan exercise.
Furthermore, it was recently reported that SBF’s parents purchased 19 properties worth $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years. The majority of the purchases were high-end beachfront properties, that included seven condominiums in the resort neighborhood of Alban.
Commenting on the same in the latest interview, SBF said,
“It was not intended to be their long term property. I don’t know how that was paid for.”