‘I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away’
Sam Bankman Fried, ex-CEO of FTX and founder of his own business, has launched his new venture Substack Newsletter today. This is an unusual move by someone who was only recently arrested Faced Eight U.S. criminal cases.
In a post titled “FTX Pre-Mortem Overview,” Bankman-Fried maintains his innocence surrounding the collapse and bankruptcy FTX was the cryptocurrency exchange he started in 2019. It raised $2 billion funding and reached a staggering valuation of $32 billion.
He wrote:
I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away. Nearly all my assets could be used to support FTX customers. I have, for instance, offered to contribute nearly all of my personal shares in Robinhood to customers–or 100%, if the Chapter 11 team would honor my D&O legal expense indemnification.
John J. Ray III, a veteran of the Enron turnaround was named as the new CEO after Bankman-Fried resigned from FTX in November.
The 30-year-old former billionaire continues to insist that if he were not “forced” to declare bankruptcy that the company would have been able to repay all its customers. He wrote: “There were numerous potential funding offers–including signed LOIs post chapter 11 filing totaling over $4b. I believe that, had FTX International been given a few weeks, it could likely have utilized its illiquid assets and equity to raise enough financing to make customers substantially whole.”
Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty on January 3 to eight criminal charges. These included conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, and conspiracy to misappropriate customer funds. Bankman-Fried could spend up to 115 years prison if he is convicted of all the charges. His trial date is October 2, 2023.
A U.S. judge released Bankman Fried last month on a $250 million bail bond. He had been extradited from the Bahamas. The bail package allowed Bankman-Fried to remain under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California.
In the Substack, Bankman-Fried went on to share what he described as “a record of FTX US’s balance sheet as of when I handed it off.”
Image credit: SBF Substack
He continued to say:
If FTX had been allowed to raise sufficient liquidity in a few weeks, I believe it could have made customers substantial whole. I didn’t realize at the time that Sullivan & Cromwell—via pressure to instate Mr. Ray and file Chapter 11, including for solvent companies like FTX US–would potentially quash those efforts. If FTX International was to restart today, I believe there is a real chance of making customers substantial whole. Even if that happens, there are still many other options. significant assets Available for customers
I’ve been, regrettably, slow to respond to public misperceptions and material misstatements. It took me some time to piece together what I could–I don’t have access to much of the relevant data, much of which is for a company (Alameda) I wasn’t running at the time.
The disgraced founder is not the first to speak out publicly. In November, He said this in a series of tweets FTX International is looking to raise liquidity and was in talks with a “number of players.” Then in December, he talked Andrew Ross Sorkin, a reporter from the Bahamas, was there for a DealBook event. a discussion that his legal team “very much” did not approve of, he told Sorkin with a boyish grin. He also