Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange that collapsed on Friday, said he regrets the company’s bankruptcy filing, blamed the downfall on “messy accounting” and criticized regulators. He spoke in a Twitter interview with the Vox news site on Thursday.
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Fast facts
- Bankman-Fried told VOX journalist Kelsey Piper that he can still save FTX by raising US$8 billion in 2 weeks, despite the company declaring bankruptcy on Friday and appointing John J. Ray III as the new CEO and chief restructuring officer the same day.
- “The people in charge of [the company] are trying to burn it all to the ground out of shame,” he said, adding that everything would be about “70% fixed right now” had the chapter 11 bankruptcy not been filed.
- “Mr. Bankman-Fried has no ongoing role at FTX, FTX US, or Alameda Research Ltd. and does not speak on their behalf,” John Ray said in a statement on Thursday.
- Bankman-Fried told Piper that his previous public image had mostly been a front for good publicity.
- He also called his past support of more regulation within crypto “just PR.” He is quoted saying, “f*** regulators,” “they make everything worse,” and “they don’t protect consumers at all.”
- While Bankman maintains that FTX never traded using client funds, he said that his crypto brokerage Alameda borrowed more money from the exchange than he had realized due to “messy accounting.”
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