Sam Bankman-Fried: 'I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away.'

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has largely denied the allegations against him in a ‘pre-mortem overview’ of the crypto exchange’s insolvency.

In a Jan. 12 post on Substack, Bankman-Fried — differentiating between companies under the FTX umbrella — claimed FTX US had been “fully solvent” at the time the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with roughly $350 million in cash on hand. He pointed to Sullivan & Crowell and the FTX US general counsel as parties who pressured him into naming John Ray as the CEO of FTX prior to the firm’s bankruptcy, seemingly disrupting a path toward making affected users “substantially whole.”

“Even now, I believe that if FTX International were to reboot, there would be a real possibility of customers being made substantially whole,” said Bankman-Fried.

In regards to the allegations Alameda had used user funds from FTX, Bankman-Fried denied any involvement:

“I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away. Nearly all of my assets were and still are utilizable to backstop FTX customers. I have, for instance, offered to contribute nearly all of my personal shares in Robinhood to customers–or 100%, if the Chapter 11 team would honor my D&O legal expense indemnification.”

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— SBF (@SBF_FTX) January 12, 2023

This story is developing and will be updated.