FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Agrees to Testify Before Congress

Harry Adjmi and Sam Bankman-Fried are seen onstage during the first annual Moonlight Gala benefitting CARE—Children With Special Needs—hosted by Michael Cayre, Roy Nachum, and MegaMoon Museum at Casa Cipriani in New York City on June 23, 2022. (Craig Barritt/Getty Images for CARE For Special Children)

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed Friday that he would testify before Congress, responding to recent demands from the House Financial Services Committee about the crypto exchange’s collapse.

This week, House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) wrote that a subpoena for Bankman-Fried to testify next week “is definitely on the table.” A subpoena has not yet been issued, and Waters indicated that he was “requested to testify” on Dec. 13 instead.

“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. But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th,” he wrote in response to a Waters post on Twitter.

In another somber statement, the FTX founder also wrote that he “had thought of myself as a model CEO, who wouldn’t become lazy or disconnected,” adding that it was “that much more destructive when I did. I’m sorry. Hopefully people can learn from the difference between who I was and who I could have been.”

Following FTX’s collapse in early November, Bankman-Fried faces no charges but a number of civil lawsuits have been filed against him and FTX. FTX also filed for bankruptcy last month after a liquidity crisis, an implosion that has rippled across the industry and prompted investigations by regulators in several countries.

Federal prosecutors in New York are asking for details on any communications such companies have had with the crypto firm and its executives, including Bankman-Fried. There are also reports that some U.S. authorities have sought information from investors or possible investors.

Other than Waters, Sen. Sherrod Brown of (D-Ohio) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) have asked him to appear because of “significant unanswered questions” regarding the firm’s collapse. A sis ter hedge fund, Alameda Research, also collapsed and later filed for bankruptcy.

“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 to Bankman-Fried in a letter issued earlier this week. They also did not issue him a subpoena.

After creating FTX, Bankman-Fried became a multi-billionaire and was the subject of much media fascination.

He became a billionaire after creating FTX and claimed to be a philanthropist who donated to causes that address issues like pandemics and climate change, along with donations to Democrats and liberal PACs.

Chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on April 10, 2019. (Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images)

In recent days, both he and Alameda head Caroline Ellison tapped defense attorneys amid ramping-up probes into their activities. Bankman-Fried has retained Mark S. Cohen, of Cohen & Gresser, Bankman-Fried’s spokesperson Mark Botnick told Reuters, while Ellison hired Washington-based law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to represent her.

Can’t Account for Billions

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal Thursday, Bankman-Fried said that he could not account for billions of dollars that customers of his cryptocurrency exchange sent to accounts of his trading company Alameda Research.

Those funds “were wired to Alameda, and … I can only speculate about what happened after that,” he said. FTX customers, he told the paper, deposited more than $5 billion in those Alameda accounts. But those funds are now gone, he conceded.

“Dollars are fungible with each other. And so it’s not like there’s this $1 bill over here that you can trace through from start to finish,” Bankman-Fried said. “What you get is more just omnibus, you know, pots of assets of various forms.”

“There are lots of ways that one could have done this in a responsible way,” he added in the WSJ interview, adding that a number of his former associates “most of my closest friends ... probably don’t want to talk with me right now.”

However, Bankman-Fried said he did not engage in any fraudulent activity and didn’t intentionally misuse funds. Since the collapse of the exchange, he’s made similar comments in recent interviews—drawing criticism from other members of the crypto community.

The Epoch Times has contacted Bankman-Fried for comment about the interview.

Reuters contributed to this report.