Sam Bankman-Fried, the former FTX CEO, has expressed only one desire, and that is to kick off a new business that would be able to pay back customers of his no-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange company.
FTX officially filed for bankruptcy this past month after its users discovered that the company was most likely fraudulently intertwined with another trading firm, Alameda Research. Both of these companies were controlled by Bankman-Fried and a very tightly-knit group of amateur executives.
As part of an interview held this past Saturday with the BBC, however, the former CEO and would-be digital asset titan stated he would “give anything” to be able to kick off a brand new venture and be able to earn money that he needs to compensate investors and customers. “I’m going to try if I can,” he stated.
“I’m going to be thinking about how we can help the world and if users haven’t gotten much back, I’m going to be thinking about what I can do for them,” the struggling entrepreneur went on. “And I think at the very least I have a duty to FTX users to do right by them as best as I can.”
The members of the Senate Agriculture Committee hosted a hearing with Rostin Behnam, the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, about increasing federal oversight throughout the cryptocurrency sector. Officials at the Securities and Exchange Commission kicked off a criminal investigation into Bankman-Fried to find out whether or not he actually broke the law by allegedly moving the funds of FTX customers over to Alameda Research, as explained by a report from The New York Times. This coming Tuesday will see a hearing from the House Financial Services Committee.
Throughout multiple media interviews, Bankman-Fried has insisted that the failure of his company was because of his own ineptitude instead of any actual criminal behavior. While making reference to a still-unnamed former FTX employee, the BBC pressed Bankman-Fried about whether or not he lied in regard to his purported lack of knowledge about the flow of assets between his two companies.
“No that’s not true,” he answered, although he did mention that he was the one responsible for any ana ll mishandling of money in his role as chief executive. “I didn’t knowingly commit fraud, I don’t think I committed fraud, I didn’t want any of this to happen. I was certainly not nearly as competent as I thought I was.”
John Ray III, the current CEO of FTX and a lawyer who succeeded Bankman-Fried in order to carry out the bankruptcy of the company, openly confirmed via court filings that the team managing the company was entirely unqualified. “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” he stated.
When questioned by the BBC about his readiness for possible arrest and imprisonment, Bankman-Fried indicated that he is quite concerned by such an outcome.
“There’s some time at night ruminating, yes,” he stated. “but when I get up during the day, I try and focus, be as productive as I can and ignore things that are out of my control.”
