Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the troubled cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has explained that he did not ‘steal’ funds. He added that FTX could have made customers considerably whole if it had been allowed a few weeks to raise the required liquidity. On Thursday, SBF posted a lengthy explanation on Substack.
According to SBF, at the end of the day, the FTX saga is somewhere between that of Voyager and Celsius.
He said, “I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away. Nearly all of my assets were and still are utilizable to backstop FTX customers. I have, for instance, offered to contribute nearly all of my personal shares in Robinhood to customers–or 100%, if the Chapter 11 team would honor my D&O legal expense indemnification.”
SBF also stated that FTX US is still completely solvent and ought to be able to repay all client money. I am dedicating practically all of my personal assets to consumers while FTX International has many billions of dollars in assets.
He said that FTX International still has substantial assets, with about $8 billion in assets of variable liquidity as of when Mr. John Ray took over. There were also multiple other prospective finance offers, including signed LOIs after the chapter 11 filing for a total of nearly $4 billion, he added.
SBF said, “I believe that, had FTX International been given a few weeks, it could likely have utilized its illiquid assets and equity to raise enough financing to make customers substantially whole.”
According to court documents and recent developments, SBF wants to keep ownership of the roughly 56 million Robinhood shares, which are valued about $450 million, in order to pay his legal bills. Since then, the Justice Department has seized the contested shares.
Source: https://coinpedia.org/news/sam-bankman-fried-says-he-didnt-steal-funds-explains-what-went-wrong/