FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Responds to Fraud Allegations

Disgraced founder of crypto exchange FTX has denied stealing anyone's money and says customers can still get their money back deposits.

Disgraced cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried made his first detailed response to the criminal charges against him last month on Thursday, arguing that the millions of customers of his collapsed exchange, FTX, could still get their money.

In a statement posted on Substack, Bankman-Fried said that "a very substantial recovery remains potentially available".

"I didn't steal funds, and I certainly didn't hide billions," he said. writing. “Almost all of my assets were and still are usable to support FTX clients.”

His statement came a day after FTX bankruptcy attorneys said in court that they had recovered at least $5 billion in funds. Mr. Bankman-Fried cited this announcement in an attempt to bolster his argument that FTX customers could still be made "essentially whole." It was unclear if he checked his statement with his legal team before publishing it.

FTX filed for bankruptcy in November after a run on customer deposits revealed an $8 billion hole. in his accounts. Mr Bankman-Fried, 30, was then arrested last month at his home in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, and promptly extradited to the United States. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have charged him with fraud, money laundering and campaign finance violations.

Authorities say Mr. Bankman-Fried has embezzled billions of dollars in client deposits from FTX and used the funds to buy luxury real estate, invest in other businesses, make political contributions and fund cryptocurrency trading at Alameda Research, the hedge fund which he also owned.

The FTX Founder was released last month on $250 million bail under strict conditions that require him to remain confined at his parents' home in Palo Alto, California. In a brief New York court appearance last week, he pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.

A spokesperson for Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who is suing Mr. Bankman-Fried, declined to comment.

< p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A spokesperson for Mr. Bankman-Fried and his gal team declined to comment.

Mr. Bankman-Fried's statement on Thursday reiterates a narrative he has previously advanced — and which U.S. prosecutors, regulators and industry experts have emphatically rejected. The message presented a detailed timeline of the financial situation of Alameda, which was closely linked to FTX, arguing that the company had lost money following a stock market crash for which it was not prepared.

Mr. Bankman-Fried's statement also attributed FTX's failure in part to an attack by its biggest rival, Binance.

"No funds were stolen “, he wrote.

But even as he described the finances of Alameda, Mr. Bankman-Fried also claimed that he did not hadn't run the company "for a few years" and that he didn't have access to all of its financial information. . Regulators and prosecutors have argued that he was in fact intimately involved in running Alameda and orchestrated a scheme that allowed the company to borrow essential...