Summary:
- Reveals Sam Bankman-Fried’s private conversation with news site Vox.
- Sam Bankman-Fried acknowledged the authenticity of the story and “firefighting” on Twitter
- FTX posted official announcement about former CEO no longer being a spokesperson
On 11/16, a text message from a Vox employee to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was posted and caught the attention of the community. Previously, the collapse of the FTX empire left many consequences in the cryptocurrency industry and raised a big question mark on investor confidence.
Sam Bankman-Fried later spoke out with tweets, ranging from “investor apology letters” to rambling tweets aimed at explaining and misleading public opinion. Most recently, he shared his “real” thoughts in a secret message with a friend.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s views in messages with Vox
About Legal perspectives
Before FTX’s empire collapsed, Bankman-Fried was actively involved in campaigns in Washington for a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. While Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is openly skeptical of government regulation, Bankman-Fried largely avoids criticizing regulators.
However, in the confidential message, Sam Bankman-Fried denied past efforts and asserted that the laws governing the crypto industry are still flawed and uncertain, “they make things worse” and “after all, they don’t protect consumers.”
When asked if regulatory efforts are “PR tricks,” the former FTX CEO admitted that it’s all a ploy to promote names and laws that don’t really distinguish right from wrong in the industry.
About willing to behave unethically
Sam Bankman-Fried has always promoted himself as an effective altruist, assuming that he will do anything, regardless of whether he is morally correct, to become rich and then use that fortune to serve the great interests of society.
He said: “The I used to say. It’s not true, it’s not true.”
Sam Bankman-Fried argues that “the greatest heroes of the decade will not be known, while the hypocrites will be loved.”
“CZ is a good example of how if you don’t do bad things, you’re okay. Now everyone thinks CZ is the hero. But is that because he has good morals? Or is it because he has stronger financial capabilities? So he’s a winner.”
Sam Bankman-Fried admits having a “front” of altruism builds reputation, and fame matters.
This person writes:
“I sympathize with those who suffered because of it. But in this stupid game that the Western ‘awakening generation’ is playing, we just have to get it right and everyone likes us.”
About the FTX – Alameda relationship
According to some allegations and investigations in the Bahamas, FTX took money from users for Alameda to invest, only to lose money and cause debts of up to $ 8-10 billion.
When asked if FTX was actually using user deposits for the wrong purposes, Sam Bankman-Fried denied it and said that the reason was purely from Alameda Research, while FTX was just a lender.
Sam said he “still thinks Alameda has enough collateral to underwrite the loan,” and “it’s unintentional, sometimes life is.”
About FTX collapsed
One theory that led to the FTX’s demise was sown earlier this year, when Alameda reportedly suffered heavy losses after Terra’s LUNA stablecoin collapsed.
Sam Bankman-Fried admitted he didn’t know the severity of the problem because of “messy accounting” and he only realized it a few weeks ago.
“If I get a chance to do it again, I’ll do more accounting, as well as minimize Alameda’s dominance of FTX.”
On the issue between Alameda and FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried added:
“Things are much more complicated.
It can’t be called lending money — it’s more complicated; The steps were clear and logical, but by the time I added them up last week, it turned out not to be.
The majority of exchanges do the same things as me, just not as big and they don’t get massive withdrawals.
Everyone wants to be the smartest, to make a complicated game using money or customer data, but in the end it’s nothing.”
When asked why he didn’t see the problem earlier, Sam Bankman-Fried replied:
“It’s like, ‘FTX doesn’t have a bank account, so people can make a temporary transfer to Alameda to get money on FTX.’
… 3 years later…
“Man, it looks like they transferred $8 billion to Alameda and we forgot about it so the money was never transferred to FTX.”
About regrets
Sam Bankman-Fried admits “I’ve screwed things up, not once but several times.” But he also stressed that much of the trouble could have been avoided if FTX hadn’t declared bankruptcy, which has largely caused financial problems to spiral out of control.
“The people in charge of the company are trying to burn it all out of shame,”
Bankman-Fried argued that he should instead continue to try to raise more money and stressed that if he just did it, then “withdrawals would be fully open after a month with customers.”
“A month ago, I was one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.
Now I’m a disaster that has collapsed.
But there’s one thing about failure — there are people who know what it feels like, and there are people who like to bring that to others.”
Sam Bankman-Fried also talked about how his “confidants”, co-founder Gary Wang and technical director Nishad Singh “ran away out of fear and guilt”, because if they had stayed they would have been able to rise to the floor together and fight back in court.
“The world has never been so dark,” he said.
About FTX hack
In the morning of Nov.12, immediately after FTX’s bankruptcy declaration, hackers attacked FTX and withdrew a large amount of money from the exchange amounting to more than $ 300 million of FTX user assets and converted almost all to ETH – becoming the world’s 34th largest Ethereum “whale”.
When asked about the attack, Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed it was a hack, carried out by “a former employee, or malicious code on the employee’s computer”.
About Plans in the near future
Bankman-Fried said his No. 1 priority now is to try to raise $8 billion. He stressed:
“That’s at its core and is all that matters for the rest of my life.”
But while he said that “a month ago, I was one of the biggest fundraisers in the world,” that $8 billion is too small for what FTX has been able to raise so far, there’s no indication that any investors will help. and even if he could secure funding, it would happen. potentially requiring both creditors and bankruptcy courts to participate.
Feedback from Sam Bankman-Fried on Vox’s article
Sam Bankman-Fried acknowledged the authenticity of the Vox report:
25) Last night I talked to a friend of mine.
They published my messages. Those were not intended to be public, but I guess they are now. pic.twitter.com/yH9aKmESY8 — SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022
“I talked to a friend last night. They posted my messages. They shouldn’t have been shared, but now.”
Sam Bankman-Fried also “fired” the above legal statements:
“A few more thoughts:
It’s not easy to be a manager. Their job is an impossible task: to oversee an area that grows faster than the powers of duty they are allowed to.
In the end, they won’t be able to adjust it the way they want.
However, there are still regulatory bodies that impress me with their knowledge and coverage such as CFTC, SCB, VARA, etc. But most feel overwhelmed.”
Therefore, Sam thinks that working with the authorities is something very discouraging when it comes to handling a large amount of work but the effect is not much. He claims to not want to care about those “stupid” legal frameworks anymore, but will move on to doing what is really beneficial instead of raising slogans that are in line with public opinion.
32) Anyway — none of that matters now.
What matters is doing the best I can. And doing everything I can for FTX’s customers. — SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022
“None of this matters anymore.
The important thing is to do the best that I can do.
And do everything for FTX users.”
Sam Bankman-Fried also apologized for using “strong language” because he said the conversation with Vox’s reporter was private and would not be made public.
30) (Some of what I said was thoughtless or overly strong–I was venting and not intending that to be public. I guess at this point what I write leaks anyway.)
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022
Official announcement from FTX
On 17/11, the official account of FTX issued an announcement about the change of leader and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is no longer a spokesperson for the exchange.
(3/3) Mr. Bankman-Fried has no ongoing role at @FTX_Official, FTX US, or Alameda Research Ltd. and does not speak on their behalf.
— FTX (@FTX_Official) November 16, 2022
“As previously announced, Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried resigned on November 11 from FTX, FTX US, Alameda Research and a network of subsidiaries.
Mr. Bankman-Fried no longer holds positions at FTX, FTX US and Alameda Research, and is not authorized to speak on behalf of these companies.”
Conclusion
Sam Bankman-Fried once had a glorious period and is one of the young billionaires in the cryptocurrency industry. However, the collapse of the FTX empire has led to a decline in the former CEO’s fortune and reputation. Sam Bankman-Fried with his current efforts has not given up on calls for relief from investors with the dream of reviving FTX.
However, trust is lost and what the community expects is a court investigation to reach a clear and transparent conclusion about the secrets behind FTX and Alamedam – hidden corners of the cryptocurrency industry.
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