Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the former CEO of the crypto exchange FTX, elaborated in a phone interview about why the platform only allowed withdrawals in the Bahamas region right before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In his 22-minute phone call with crypto vlogger Tiffany Fong, SBF said he did not want to put himself not FTX to be âwith a lot of angry people in it.â
Despite the company being situated in the Bahamas, SBF claimed he did not like having the exchange be âincorporatedâ with a nation full of anger. He said he told the Bahamian regulator he gave a âheads upâ just a day before filing for bankruptcy. He allowed withdrawals on his own decision when the regulators did not provide a confirmation or disapproval.
What Went On During the Halted Withdrawals
During its pressure in the first week of November and when FTT – the exchangeâs native token – slowly deteriorated in value, FTX halted all withdrawals on November 8. This caused users to get trapped during the exchangeâs meltdown. According to reports, FTX had to stop all transactions due to liquidity issues.
On November 10, the exchange announced that they reactivated withdrawals for the Bahamas. It claimed it had the approval of the countryâs regulators, which resulted in millions of dollars leaving FTX. The next day, it filed for bankruptcy, and SBF stepped down as CEO.
Yet, after the money pullout and the inevitable bankruptcy filing, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (SCB) stated that it never allowed or rejected the proposal from FTX to withdraw the money. The SCB also warned that the funds would return to the exchange to proceed with its troubled liquidation process.
SBF on the FTX Hacker and Company Assets
In his November 16 interview with Tiffany Fong, Bankman-Fried said he was gathering pieces of the FTX hackerâs identity. He detailed that the anonymous hacker stole around $450 million right after the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
He also claimed that he has eight people that fit the role of the mysterious hacker but had limited access when he was âexploring it.â He believed that the culprit used to work for FTX or that someone had planted malware in a former employeeâs computer.
When interviewed about what caused the FTX crash, he said it was not illiquidity that caused it but rather âthe massive correlation of things during market moves, especially when they are triggered by fear over the position itself.â
As for details about Alameda Research using customer funds for trades, he did not speak about it other than nobody monitoring the ârisk positionsâ in the company.
When Fong asked about FTTâs actual value, he said it had a real use case despite a âfewâ problems. He said it was more helpful than many tokens and was âeconomically underpinnedâ than other competing altcoins like Binanceâs BUSD, BNB, and Coinbaseâs USDC.
To this day, he looks back at the downfall of his creation, filled with regrets and reflecting on the things he should have done when things were stable back then. In a separate interview, when asked about his bank account, he said he only had $100,000 left the last time he saw it.
