Bankman-Fried Vows To ‘Give Anything’ For Capital As FTX Flails
Sam Bankman-Fried began to publicly reckon with the chaos he sowed in crypto markets, pledging to “give anything” to raise capital and repay users of FTX.com.
(Bloomberg) -- Sam Bankman-Fried began to publicly reckon with the chaos he sowed in crypto markets, pledging to “give anything” to raise capital and repay users of FTX.com.
The chief executive officer of the embattled exchange said in a series of tweets on Thursday that he “f---ed up twice,” failing to properly manage the trading platform’s finances and not communicating about the situation.
“At the end of the day, I was CEO, which means that I was responsible for making sure that things went well,” he said. “I, ultimately, should have been on top of everything. I clearly failed in that. I’m sorry.”
Bankman-Fried, 30, attempted to explain what went wrong, detailing the firm’s leverage and dollar liquidity. He said FTX is in talks with “a number of players.”
“We’re spending the week doing everything we can to raise liquidity,” he said. “I can’t make any promises about that. But I’m going to try. And give anything I have to if that will make it work.”
FTX is in the midst of a liquidity crisis, with Bankman-Fried telling investors on Wednesday that the firm had a shortfall of as much as $8 billion to cover, and needed $4 billion to remain solvent and avoid bankruptcy. The exchange had about $5 billion of withdrawals on Sunday, he said.
Bankman-Fried said he would do right by customers, but with scant details of how that might look. He added that Alameda Research, the crypto hedge fund he founded before FTX, would wind down trading operations.
Read more: Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research Is Winding Down Trading
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