Former FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried, in a series of messages sent over Twitter on Friday, said he’s “willing to testify” before the US House Financial Services Committee about the disintegration of his crypto empire.
(Bloomberg) — Former FTX Chief Executive Officer Sam Bankman-Fried, in a series of messages sent over Twitter on Friday, said he’s “willing to testify” before the US House Financial Services Committee about the disintegration of his crypto empire.
Bankman-Fried added that he would be limited in what he would be able to say because he didn’t have access to much of his data — “professional or personal.” He didn’t respond to requests for additional comment.
In tweets earlier this month, the House committee’s chairwoman, Representative Maxine Waters, urged Bankman-Fried to attend the Dec. 13 hearing, saying his appearance was “imperative.”
Bankman-Fried’s spokesman, Mark Botnick, said “details are still being worked out” and declined to comment further. Spokespeople for the House panel didn’t return requests for comment.
Bankman-Fried missed the deadline set by the Senate Banking Committee for a response to a request to testify at its Dec. 14 hearing on FTX. His counsel didn’t reply in the needed time frame, the committee said Thursday in a statement.
Bankman-Fried, who hasn’t been charged with any crimes, has denied trying to perpetrate a fraud, though he has owned up to grievous managerial errors at FTX.
Bahamas-based FTX and more than 100 related entities, including the company’s US arm, filed for bankruptcy in November, sending shock waves across the crypto ecosystem. The firm, which had been one of the world’s largest digital-asset exchanges, and its founder now face scrutiny from regulators and prosecutors in the US and overseas. The probes could eventually lead to criminal charges.
At the center of the investigations into the FTX implosion are questions about whether FTX mishandled customer funds by lending them out to the trading platform’s sister company, Alameda Research, to shore up risky bets.
–With assistance from Yueqi Yang.
(Adds comment from Bankman-Fried’s spokesman in the fourth paragraph.)
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