FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange that operated globally, went bankrupt after panicked traders withdrew $6 billion from the company in three days following a series of bombshell allegations.
Sam Bankman-Fried admitted it had been a “bad month” since FTX went bankrupt, freezing thousands of people’s savings.
The 30-year-old, who once positioned himself as a savior for struggling businesses, has been accused of misusing customer funds and secretly moving $10 billion out of the company.
At least $1 billion is said to have vanished.
Mr Bankman-Fried insisted at the New York Times’ DealBook summit that he had never attempted to commit fraud and was “shocked” by how the crisis unfolded.
As it navigates bankruptcy, FTX has new management, with its CEO declaring that he has never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls” in his 40-year career.
Funds belonging to FTX users were allegedly mixed with funds at Alameda Research, a trading firm run by Mr Bankman-Fried.
After his company failed, Mr Bankman-Fried said he now has “close to nothing” and only one working credit card.
He admitted that his companies “completely failed” when it came to risk management, which he described as “pretty embarrassing in retrospect”
“Whatever happened, why it happened, I had a duty to our stakeholders, our customers, our investors, the regulators of the world, to do right by them,” Mr Bankman-Fried continued.
Although the embattled entrepreneur believes that American users should be able to receive their money in full, he has previously warned that international customers may only receive 20% to 25% of the money they had locked into FTX.
A number of cryptocurrency companies have gone bankrupt in recent months, coinciding with a sharp drop in the value of Bitcoin.
Some companies have been accused of offering savings interest rates that are simply too good to be true, while others have been compared to “Ponzi schemes”
The Bahamas has now launched a criminal investigation into the events leading up to FTX’s demise.
