‘Changpeng Zhao Played Me:’ Sam Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried, in a recent interview with Forbes, claimed that he got played by Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder of Binance. 

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the disgraced founder of FTX Exchange, is in a media tour for the past couple of weeks. In his latest interview with Forbes, hosted by Steven Ehrlich, SBF claimed that Changpeng Zhao played him.

The interview comes a day before the hearing with the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services scheduled on Tuesday. Sam Bankman-Fried said he would not travel to the U.S. and would testify remotely because he fears Paparazzi. 

U.S. authorities detained SBF shortly after the interview on fraud and money laundering charges.

Sam Lost Concentration

The FTX founder has repeatedly mentioned in interviews that he lost focus on what was happening. In a recent Forbes interview, he said, “I have learned what happens when I lose concentration over a lot of important things.”

According to a Business Insider report, Sam Bankman-Fried was caught playing the video game League of Legends while pitching his business to Sequoia Capital. This indeed matches with what SBF claimed, that he didn’t concentrate on important things. On Monday, he admitted to playing games while on Twitter spaces he attended after the collapse of FTX.

SBF Claims to Have Multi-Billion Funding Offers

Sam Bankman-Fried claims that new investment sources have offered him multi-billion funding. However, he refused to name the potential investors.

He stated:

“I got multiple, multi-billion dollar, seemingly fairly serious funding proposals, including multiple since after the crash. It was not from current investors but from new sources.”

He wants to start a new business to make things right. When asked what role he would have with the latest investment offers, SBF replied that the investors envision a world where he is still involved with the company.

“I think what I would say is most of them (investors) were envisioning a world where I was still involved with the company, I was still helping, and I was still pushing forward.”

Changpeng Zhao Played SBF

FTX, once the world’s second-largest exchange, was the biggest competitor to the throne of Binance. Perhaps, the collapse of FTX escalated with the confirmation from Changpeng Zhao that Binance was exiting its FTX token (FTT) equity position.

When the host asked whether Sam thinks CZ played him, he affirmed.

“In terms of the CZ angle, obviously, I can’t know for sure, but my guess is he played me, he played it well. I think he probably did better than he thought he would, like I dont think he thought that this was going to be the outcome. I think he thought it was going to be damaging, but not this damaging. I dont know, I am guessing he is happy, I cant know for sure. He played it quite well over the last couple of months. He had a far more carefully thought-out plan than what I originally thought he would have. It was well constructed and obviously quite effective.”

Sam Bankman-Fried

Both founders recently had an unpleasant exchange of tweets regarding Binance pulling out from the FTX investment. But Changpeng Zhao claims that “​​It was never a competition or fight.” With Sam not attending the hearing in person, what are your thoughts on whether it will be any different than his previous online interviews?

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