FTX: Interview exposes Sam Bankman-Fried’s real person

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried shared his "honest" thoughts on the FTX event - Alameda collapse.

More than a week has passed since the FTX crisis began, leading to the complete collapse of one of the world's top crypto exchanges and creating a domino effect throughout the cryptocurrency sector. However, during this time, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) still had time to "relax" and "calm down" before what had happened, even being covered by many major newspapers in the US. “sympathize” with the mistakes he made.

However, according to a new article published by Vox  , Sam Bankman-Fried appears as a completely different person, from thinking to actions that were hailed as "charity" before. Calling this an "interview" is also incorrect, because perhaps the Vox reporter  was so shocked with the information he read that he only dared to take screenshots of the messages with Sam Bankman-Fried and post them, but not edited in a coherent way.

FoxCryptoNews would like to summarize some key points from the interview.

Sam Bankman-Fried's "Interview" with Vox

Vox reporter Kelsey Piper said she had a chat via Twitter with Sam Bankman-Fried, who recently stepped down as CEO of crypto exchange FTX following the company's bankruptcy. Ms. Piper said that Sam Bankman-Fried actually came to her to talk.

About the law

When asked if the efforts to build legal regulations in Washington DC in the past time are real or just "PR tricks", the former CEO of FTX admitted that all are just tricks to promote the name of the exchange. .

SBF also said that there is no one in the US that can fully regulate the crypto industry, “they can only do more or do less”, “make things worse” and “do not protect people”. Consume at all”. Sam also uses "strong language" when talking about it.

SBF said that regulators at the moment “do not distinguish between good and bad” in the crypto sector, or even the financial industry in general, but only depend entirely on the decision of the US government.

Ethical

Sam Bankman-Fried has always promoted himself as an " effective altruism ", thinking that he would do anything, regardless of morality, to become rich and then use that fortune to serve the great interests of society.

Sam Bankman-Fried wrote: “My friend, the nonsense I used to say. It's not really true."

The SBF said that "the greatest heroes of this decade will not be known, while the most loved ones of the present time are hypocrites".

Sam writes: “CZ is a prime example of how if you don't do bad things, you'll be fine. Now everyone thinks CZ is the hero. But is that because he is right? Or is it because his wallet is the thickest? So he's the winner."

Sam Bankman-Fried admits that having an effective altruism "front panel" builds reputation, and reputation is important.

This person wrote:

“I sympathize with those who have suffered because of it. But in this stupid game that the Western "woke generation" is playing, we just have to say the right thing and everyone will like us."

About the FTX – Alameda relationship

When asked if FTX really misused users' deposits, Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried maintained his denial, but said that Alameda Research (an investment fund also owned by SBF) was the do that.

According to some allegations, FTX took users' money to lend to Alameda and invest, only to lose money and cause a deficit of up to 8-10 billion USD.

Sam said he "still thinks Alameda has enough collateral to guarantee the loan", that he has no intention of running away, but "sometimes life is like that".

About the reason why FTX collapsed

When asked by a Vox reporter whether the "seeds" of the crash stemmed from the LUNA-UST event in May 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried admitted he had "failed to grasp the severity of the crash." of the situation because of the cluttered books,” just found out a few weeks ago.

SBF said that "if there is a chance to do it again", he will perform a more thorough financial examination, as well as reduce Alameda's influence on FTX.

Sam also claims to have been almost unwarned about the risks of FTX – Alameda.

Sam Bankman-Fried further clarified that things are much more complicated:

“It can't be called lending money to [Alameda] - it's more complicated; Each of those decisions made sense, but when I added them up last week, it turned out not to be.

Most exchanges do the same thing as me, just not as big and don't get a bank run.

Everyone wants to be the smartest, making a complicated game using money or customer data, but it doesn't work out in the end.”

When asked why the problem was not seen sooner, Sam Bankman-Fried replied:

"It's like 'FTX doesn't have a bank account, so people can make a temporary transfer to Alameda to top up FTX'."

…3 years later…

“Oh my god, it looks like they transferred $8 billion to Alameda and we forgot about this account so the money never went to FTX.”

About regrets

Sam Bankman-Fried admits "I screwed up, not once but many times". However, this person said that more trouble could have been avoided if FTX had not declared "bankruptcy", an action that took away SBF's decision-making power because he was no longer CEO. He says this is his "biggest regret".

Sam Bankman-Fried claims the people who took over the exchange are “trying to burn it down in shame.”

Sam also stated that he is still in the process of raising $ 8 billion to cover the shortfall on the exchange, saying that this is “the most important goal of my life” for the next 2 weeks. If he doesn't declare bankruptcy, he may still have a chance to make enough money and return it to users.

“A month ago, I was still one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.

Now I am a fallen disaster.

But there's one thing about failure - there are people who know what it feels like, and there are people who enjoy giving it to others."

Sam Bankman-Fried also criticized his "confidantes" Chief Technology Officer Gary Wang and Chief Technical Officer Nishad Singh "running away out of fear and guilt", because if they had stayed they would have can raise the floor together and fight back in bankruptcy court.

About the FTX hack

On the morning of November 12, right after FTX's bankruptcy announcement, an unknown hacker hacked into FTX and extracted a large amount of money from the exchange, before being stopped by another group believed to be FTX employees.

Despite this, the attacker still managed to steal more than 300 million USD of FTX user assets and converted almost all to ETH - becoming the 34th largest Ethereum "whale" in the world.

When asked about the attack, Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed it was a hack, done by "a former employee, or malicious code on the employee's computer".

Official statement from Sam Bankman-Fried

About Vox's post

Writing on Twitter, Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried acknowledged the authenticity of the article from Vox:

“Last night I was talking to a friend. They posted my messages. They shouldn't have been shared, but now it's gone."

Next, the former CEO vowed to do everything to "do the right thing".

Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried also "fired" for the "bold" legal statements above:

“A few more thoughts:

It is not easy to be a manager. Their job is an impossible task: to oversee an area that is growing faster than their mandate.

In the end, they won't be able to adjust it the way they want.

However, there are regulatory agencies that impress me with their knowledge and comprehensiveness like CFTC, SCB, VARA, etc. But most feel overwhelmed.”

Therefore, Sam thinks that working with the government is something that is very frustrating when dealing with a large amount of work but the results are not much. Therefore, this person declares that he will not want to care about those "stupid" legal frameworks anymore, but will switch to doing what is really beneficial instead of raising slogans that are in line with public opinion.

“The above things don't matter anymore.

The important thing is to do the best I can.

And do everything for FTX users.”

Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried also apologized for using "strong language" because he said the conversation with the Vox reporter was private and would not be made public.

Continuing the series of "random" Twitter posts

Prior to that, following the series of tweets that "random talk" that was reported by Coin68 (before Vox 's interview was shared), Sam Bankman-Fried still "narrated" the story of the collapse of FTX according to its point of view.

“Once upon a time – a month ago – FTX was still a valuable company.

FTX has a daily trading volume of 10-15 billion USD, annual revenue is 1 billion USD.

We are hailed as one of the most successful companies.

I've been on the cover of every magazine, and FTX is Silicon Valley's darling.

We were overconfident and became careless.”

Sam claims FTX used $5 billion leverage on $20 billion of assets, which were FTT tokens but still had value, but with risks. And then the crash came and users rushed to withdraw their money.

“About 25% of customer assets are withdrawn every day, or $4 billion.

Turns out I was wrong: leverage was not $5 billion, but 13 billion.

13 billion USD in leverage, the floor was bank run, FTT was severely devalued, all at the same time.

That's why you shouldn't use leverage.”

Statement from FTX

Also on the morning of November 17, the FTX cryptocurrency exchange issued an official notice separating them from the statements of former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Specifically, the exchange's interim CEO, Mr. John Ray III, stated:

“As previously announced, Mr. Sam Bankman-Fried resigned on 11/11 from FTX, FTX US, Alameda Research and its 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.”

FoxCryptoNews summary

Nov 17, 2022