FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Reveals He Can’t Account for Billions Sent to Alameda Research

Then CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried testifies during a hearing before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill, in Washington, on Dec. 8, 2021. Alex Wong/Getty Images

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried revealed Thursday that he doesn’t know what happened to billions of dollars that customers of his cryptocurrency exchange sent to accounts of his trading company Alameda Research.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal Thursday, Bankman-Fried said that the funds “were wired to Alameda, and ... I can only speculate about what happened after that.” FTX customers, he said, deposited more than $5 billion in those Alameda accounts and added that the funds are now gone.