CEOs and companies are never on the side of the people
For anyone seeking direct proof that woke capitalism is nothing but a scam, look no further than Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of the now bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, who says as much in a direct message exchange with Vox reporter Kelsey Piper. He calls “ethics” a “dumb game we woke Westerners play” — presumably to avoid any scrutiny from journalists, employees, investors and consumers.
After the crypto firm collapsed, the executive who handled the Enron debacle was brought in – and said he’d never seen anything like it
Casual observers could be forgiven for thinking the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX is another typical tale of financial mismanagement. That’s how its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, terms it: a liquidity crisis that tipped over into a solvency one.
FTX had deposits and loans and when depositors tried to get their money back, FTX didn’t have it to hand. Sure, the loans were in fancy digital money, rather than stale dollars, but at first glance, it appears like just another big company failure.
Then you look closer, and it becomes clear that the whole edifice is in fact the corporate equivalent of three children in a trenchcoat pretending to be a fully grown man.
When FTX raised $420 million from an array of big-name investors in October last year, the cryptocurrency exchange said the money would help grow the business, improve user experience and allow it to engage more with regulators.
Left unmentioned was that nearly three-quarters of the money, $300 million, went instead to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who sold some of his personal stake in the company, according to FTX financial records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the transaction.
Mr. Bankman-Fried’s cashout was large by startup-world standards, where such sales historically were taboo because they allow founders to reap profits before investors. Mr. Bankman-Fried told investors at the time it was a partial reimbursement of money he spent to buy out rival Binance’s stake in FTX a few months earlier, according to some of the people familiar with the transaction.
The new CEO of FTX, John Ray, III, revealed several wild and shocking items found in the collapsed company’s bankruptcy filing, which include the founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried lending himself $1 billion, and FTX corporate funds being used to buy personal homes, among other things.
The collapse of FTX has dealt a catastrophic blow to crypto’s reputation and aspirations
The fall from grace was hard and fast. Only a fortnight ago Sam Bankman-Fried was in the stratosphere. ftx, his cryptocurrency exchange, then the third-largest, was valued at $32bn; his own wealth was estimated at $16bn. To the gushing venture capitalists (vcs) of Silicon Valley he was the financial genius who could wow investors while playing video games, destined, perhaps, to become the world’s first trillionaire. In Washington he was the acceptable face of crypto, communing with lawmakers and bankrolling efforts to influence its regulation.
Disgraced Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison penned graphic blog posts about polyamory and masochism before the implosion of her FTX-linked cryptocurrency hedge fund.
Ellison — who dated FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried — wrote candidly about her “‘foray into poly” on her now-deleted Tumblr account back in February 2020, according to the Daily Mail.
The post — along with a series of other sexualized entries — was unearthed by the tabloid just days after CoinDesk claimed Ellison, 28, and Bankman-Fried, 30, were part of a 10-person “cabal of roommates” that managed operations for FTX and Alameda from a luxury penthouse in the Bahamas. CoinDesk claimed the group “are, or used to be, in romantic relationships with each other.”
FTX’s new boss said the firm’s corporate governance under disgraced ex-CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was the worst he’s seen in his career — including his stint cleaning up the mess at Enron.
FTX CEO John Ray III — an insolvency expert who steered energy firm Enron through its infamous $23 billion bankruptcy following a massive accounting scandal — ripped his predecessors in a scathing court filing on Thursday.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled CEO of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was a massive donor to the Democratic Party. But you wouldn’t know it from the reporting on the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), who have so far almost completely hidden that salient detail from their audiences.
Disgraced tech bro Sam Bankman-Fried has blamed his Harry Potter fan ex-girlfriend for the $32billion collapse of his crypto exchange FTX and claims he was ‘oblivious’ to its impending demise until it was too late.
Bankman-Fried, 30 – who lived and worked with in a 10-person ‘polycule’ in the Bahamas along with his on-off girlfriend where they all dated each other – said in a Twitter direct message interview with Vox that his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison’s company Alameda was responsible for gambling and losing his company’s money.
Asked about FTX loaning money to Alameda and whether he thought they had enough collateral to cover losses, he said ‘sometimes life creeps up on you’.
Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself
The fallen crypto CEO on what went wrong, why he did what he did, and what lies he told along the way.
Last night, Sam Bankman-Fried DMed me on Twitter.
That was surprising. I’d spoken to Bankman-Fried via Zoom earlier in the summer when I was working on a profile of him, so I reached out to him via DM on November 13, after news broke that his cryptocurrency exchange had collapsed, with billions in customer deposits apparently gone. I didn’t expect him to respond — typically, people under investigation by both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice don’t return requests for comment.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and a string of A-list celebrities who backed his failed crypto trading platform have been sued in a class action lawsuit worth $11 billion.
The suit filed in Florida names stars including Tom Brady, Gisele Bundchen, Shaquille O’Neal, Steph Curry and Larry David.
It claims Bankman-Fried, 30, and the celebrities he recruited to endorse FTX are behind losses to American consumers valued at $11 billion.
This just keeps getting better. Celebrity endorsements of worthless coins and other digital scams should have been outlawed long ago.
The U.S. and the Bahamas have discussed potentially extraditing former crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried to the U.S. for questioning regarding the collapse of his company, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
Bankman-Fried’s FTX collapsed from being a world-class crypto trading company to filing for bankruptcy last week. Bankman-Fried resides in the Bahamas, where the company is also registered. The top Democratic donor is facing burgeoning calls for investigation in the U.S.
He was on record stating it was a Ponzi scheme well before the collapse.
Well before the catastrophic collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried told everyone what he was doing. He told them about his appetite for risk. He told them some crypto exchanges were “secretly insolvent.” Last year, when declaring his net worth to be an estimated $10 billion, he said it was in “mostly illiquid” assets. Even when Bloomberg’s Matt Levine suggested he was in the “Ponzi business” during an interview in April, Bankman-Fried didn’t disagree. “I think that’s a pretty reasonable response,” he said.
I see Madoff like jail time ahead.
The $32 Billion Crypto Scammer
“The Next Warren Buffett.” That’s how Fortune magazine dubbed Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto wunderkind who wore shorts, schlubby socks, and sneakers on stage with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. But Bankman-Fried, worth an estimated $32 billion at his height, wouldn’t just be a financial oracle like Buffett. He would also be the second-coming of George Soros: By the end of this midterm election cycle, he’d become the second largest donor to the Democratic Party.
Over the past few days, all of that has come spectacularly undone.
Now, Bankman-Fried looks, at best, like the original storyline for Michael Saylor of Microstrategy during the Dotcom bust. Or, more likely, like Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos infamy. Or, with increasing plausibility, like a less civic-minded Bernie Madoff.
Former billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of cryptocurrency exchange company FTX, funneled millions of dollars to Democratic campaigns, becoming one the party’s largest donors, second only to George Soros.
Bankman-Fried donated nearly $127 million during the midterm cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data. His company also reportedly set up a website, Aid for Ukraine, to raise funds for Ukrainians amid the ongoing war against Russia. The initiative was powered by the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, FTX and Ukrainian-web company Everstake.
The founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX has been accused of lying to customers amid fears the fallout from its bankruptcy could spread through “cascading contagion”.
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, founder of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, claimed his arch-rival, Sam Bankman-Fried, misled clients and investors as FTX spiralled out of control.
FTX had some eye-opening connections to powerful entities and individuals around the world before it all came crashing down.
FTX made waves with early endorsements by NFL legend Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, and NBA superstar Stephen Curry. FTX spent big money on a Super Bowl commercial featuring “Seinfeld” creator Larry David.
FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried Sit in the Crosshairs of U.S. Prosecutors
The crypto exchange’s collapse likely exposed the company and its founder to potential criminal liability
FTX’s offshore status and its willingness to keep American traders off its Bahamas-based exchange in large part shielded the company from strict U.S. laws that govern trading and how investments can be sold to the public.
But FTX’s implosion last week and reports that it used customer funds to back an affiliate’s risky venture investments have exposed the company and its founder to potential criminal liability, according to attorneys who specialize in white-collar criminal law.
