Sam Bankman-Fried Agrees to Testify Before Congress

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried agreed to testify earlier than the House Financial Services Committee subsequent week in an try to uncover what prompted the cryptocurrency firm’s downfall. Bankman-Fried, who usually goes by “SBF” posted a tweet on Friday saying he’s “willing” to testify however says he received’t deliver a lot to the desk.

He wrote, “I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like.” The info he says he hopes to help with contains FTX’s “solvency and American customers,” why he thinks FTX crashed, and the pathways during which the ex-company might discover to “return value to users internationally,” in addition to how he failed the corporate.

Committee chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) mentioned Bankman-Fried’s look was “imperative” within the proceedings and tweeted this week {that a} subpoena was on the desk ought to he not conform to testify.

Bankman-Fried resigned because the FTX CEO on November 11, the identical day the firm filed for chapter after a CoinDesk article revealed a considerable amount of self-issued FTT tokens have been getting used to prop up Alameda Research, his personal crypto buying and selling agency. SBF has mentioned he didn’t “knowingly commingle funds.”

Since his resignation, allegations of insufficient threat administration, poor governance, and inappropriate use of buyer funds have emerged.

Bankman-Fried declined to instantly testify in a tweet earlier this month, saying he needed extra time to assessment what prompted FTX’s undoing, however Waters pushed again, writing within the tweet, “Based on your role as CEO and your media interviews over the past few weeks, it’s clear to us that the information you have thus far is sufficient for testimony.”

The Senate Banking Committee needs to listen to from SBF too. In a letter issued to him this week, Chairman Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) requested him to look earlier than the committee due to “significant unanswered questions” surrounding FTX’s collapse and its involvement with Alameda, which filed for chapter on the identical day.

“You must answer for the failure of both entities that was caused, at least in part, by the clear misuse of client funds and wiped out billions of dollars owed to over a million creditors,” the senators wrote.

SBF has apologized to those that invested in FTX and mentioned he hopes others “can learn from the difference between who I was and who I could have been.”

While he’s been fast to make an apology, what lawmakers actually need is for him to clarify what really occurred. The House committee listening to is scheduled for 10 a.m. ET on December 14.