Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of crypto exchange FTX, still hasn’t finished his Twitter thread. In the bizarre posts, SBF recently wrote that his “one goal” is “to do right by customers.”
Contrary to revelations in recent days, the former FTX CEO claimed that Alameda owned more assets than liabilities M2M but not liquid, that Alameda had a margin position on FTX Intl and FTX US had enough funds to compensate all customers.
“I am doing what I can to make this happen. I am personally meeting with regulators and working with teams to do what we can for customers,” SBF wrote.
The tweets were criticized by the majority of the crypto community as a shifted perception of reality. The bankruptcy filing had revealed that FTX and Alameda are facing a financial hole of more than $10 billion. It was also revealed that SBF had a backdoor created in order to send customer funds to Alameda and to falsify the companies’ financial statements.
In the latest in a series of posts on Twitter, Bankman-Fried said that FTX was processing ~$10 billion/day in volume and billions in remittances a few weeks ago. “But there was too much leverage–more than I realized. A run on the bank and market crash exhausted liquidity,” SBF said.
“So what can I try to do? Raise liquidity, compensate customers and reboot,” Bankman-Fried wrote. He said he might fail, but added, “And part of me thinks I might get somewhere.”
The disgraced founder of FTX also reiterated that the illiquid M2M assets of $9 billion are larger than the liquid asset deficit:
I know you’ve all seen this, but here’s where things stand today, roughly speaking. [LOTS OF CAVEATS, ETC.]
Liquid: -$8b
Semi: +$5.5b
Illiquid: +$3.5bAnd yeah, maybe that $9b illiquid M2M isn’t worth $9b (+$1b net). OTOH–a month ago it was worth $18b; +$10b net.
Restart or jail time for the ex-CEO of FTX?
The tweets do not find much credibility in the crypto community. Ultimately, SBF wants to pay existing investors with the money he receives from new investors. This is the classic definition of a ponzi scheme. Moreover, Bankman-Fried skips the part where he used users’ funds illegally.
FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week and according to current knowledge has more than one million creditors.
It is also questionable whether Bankman-Fried’s tweets represent his own opinion or if the statements are aligned with new CEO and bankruptcy attorney John Ray III. As the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, Bankman-Fried is still trying to raise capital despite the bankruptcy filing.
Remarkably, Bankman-Fried has not yet been charged with criminal misconduct. Meanwhile, SBF seems to be doing his utmost to cover the tracks of his crime.
The ex-CEO of FTX deleted several tweets in which he lied to users about the exchange’s woes shortly before withdrawals were halted. According to some analysts, SBF’s actions are a clear manipulation of evidence.
Bankman-Fried is allegedly using the new tweets to cover up the deletion of his older incriminating tweets in an apparent attempt to fool tweet tracking algorithms, which use the total number of tweets on his account to identify deleted tweets.
Bankman-Fried’s latest tweets may be nothing more than an attempt to retract his previous guilty pleas. The lawyers who will investigate the case will scrutinize all of the former FTX CEO’s tweets to determine if he misled users.
But whether SBF goes to jail could also depend on his family’s ties to government circles, as the community surmises.