In a new interview with The New York Times, former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried said he didn’t knowingly commit fraud and blamed the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange on rapid, unchecked growth.
Bankman-Fried’s public interview with The New York Times’ during an investor conference didn’t answer many of the questions investors have following FTX’s sudden and unexpected implosion and bankruptcy filing.
In the interview, the 30-year-old former crypto billionaire reiterated that FTX’s failure was due to a market downturn and the fact that the cryptocurrency exchange grew too quickly without proper controls in place.
“I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,” said Bankman-Fried. He joined the conference virtually from his home in the Bahamas against the advice of his lawyers.
Bankman-Fried’s FTX.com and FTX U.S. exchanges were once valued at a combined $40 billion U.S., but both companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November, citing $8 billion U.S. in losses.
Bankman-Fried is alleged to have improperly transferred funds between the FTX exchange and sister company Alameda Research, which squandered that money through a series of bad trades and financial transactions.
When asked repeatedly whether he improperly took customer deposits and lent them to Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried said he “didn’t knowingly commingle funds.”
Bankman-Fried attributed the situation to an accounting mistake, saying there was a “substantial discrepancy” between the company’s legitimate audited financials and the figures displayed on FTX’s faulty dashboards.
When asked about his own future and whether he had committed any crimes, Bankman-Fried said: “I’ve had a bad month.”
