I Froze Up in the Face of Pressure

The disgraced founder of FTX apologized to his employees in a two-page letter dispatched to his former colleagues, shedding light on the demise of his crypto conglomerate. He also mentioned the details of the collateral and liabilities the group has.

Calling the FTX employees his “family,” SBF said he froze up in the face of pressure” and “lost track of the most important things in commotion.”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and I would give anything to be able to go back and do things over again. You were my family. I’ve lost that, and our old home is an empty warehouse of monitors. When I turn around, there’s no one left to talk to.”

• Despite not directly addressing allegations that FTX loaned customer funds to its sister trading firm – Alameda – to cover its liabilities, Bankman-Fried said he regrets his “oversight failure.”
• The former exec also asserted that he “did not realize the full extent of the margin position” nor “the magnitude of the risk posed by a hyper-correlated crash.”
• SBF claimed there was potential interest in billions of dollars of funding minutes after he signed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. He added that the remaining collateral, as well as the interest from other parties, could have been returned in large value to customers and saved the business from total collapse.
• With regards to purchasing assets from the embattled crypto exchange, Tron’s Justin Sun recently said that he is open to “any kind of deal” and that “all options” are on the table.
• The letter comes after reports of FTX group, SBF, and his parents investing heavily in the Bahamas’ real estate surfaced.