Sam Bankman-Fried, a co-founder of FTX, has repeatedly denied allegations made by the US government that he misappropriated $8 billion in client assets in the months prior to his federal charges on money laundering and misuse of customer cash.
Sam Bankman-Fried Responds To FBI Charges
In a post on Substack on Thursday morning, Sam Bankman-Fried said that Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao had directed a multi-month effort to bring down FTX. Additionally, he denied allegations that he stole billions of dollars in user money.
As a large defense against FBI allegations, Fried, a banker first, claimed that his $32 billion crypto fortune was destroyed by an $8 billion scam.
Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to eight federal offenses, including fraud and money laundering, and was released earlier this month on a $250 million recognizance bail. The trial to decide his fate will start in October of this year, following his most recent court appearance.
Beginning in 2022, Bankman-Fried estimated Alameda’s net worth to be $99 billion. He predicted that by October, the net assets of his hedge fund would be $10 billion. He compared his FTT token to Tesla stock and the Invesco QQQ ETF, which tracks the Nasdaq 100, and blamed the decrease in value on the market.
Bankman-Fried Maintains His Account
According to regulators and prosecutors, FTX and Alameda are accused of being instruments rather than fully legitimate businesses in Fried’s Bankman-scam. According to FTX’s restructuring management, the firms suffered significant and perplexing liquidity constraints when FTX filed for bankruptcy in November.
Regulators built the case against Bankman-Fried with the help of his former executives Caroline Ellison and Zixiao Gary Wang, who both accepted plea deals for allegations of fraud. Bankman-Post Fried’s made no reference to assisting with government investigations.
In his post, Bankman-Fried also mentioned that previous cryptocurrency businesses have “blown up.” He made no mention of the alleged damage that three of those businesses—BlockFi, Genesis, and Gemini—were allegedly subjected to as a result of FTX’s failure.
He had also made a number of other assertions, such as that FTX US was still solvent and that the liquidity crisis at Alameda was due to general market turbulence rather than any malfeasance. He went on to say that FTX International and Alameda were profitable, entirely honest businesses.
On November 6, the former CEO of FTX referred to Zhao’s post on Binance as the culmination of a “very effective months-long PR effort against FTX.” Zhao responded to these accusations on Twitter by saying: “FTX destroyed themselves because they plundered billions of dollars.” After the piece, Bankman-Fried grew. That being said, the 30-year-old wrote, “No monies were stolen.”
Considering how he has been keeping his crypto empire’s operations a secret, all of these comments seem like a wild trip.
