(MENAFN) Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried disputed on Wednesday that he committed fraud at his defunct cryptocurrency exchange, with billions of dollars missing, and said he'd had a "poor month."
Bankman-Fried claimed in his first significant public appearance since the November 11 collapse of FTX and sister trading business Alameda Research that he "messed up" at the helm of the exchange and should have focused more on risk management, consumer safety, and the ties between FTX and Alameda.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” the 30-year-old asserted, in a video link at the New York Times DealBook Summit. “There are things I would give anything to be able to do over again. I didn’t ever try to commit fraud on anyone.”
The defunct crypto millionaire further stated that he was down to his last $100,000 and only had one functional credit card.
His comments come as authorities investigate how FTX, domiciled in the Bahamas, ended up with a $8 billion hole in its balance sheet and if it mismanaged customer cash. According to sources, FTX loaned customer funds to Bankman-bitcoin Fried's trading business Alameda for dangerous transactions.
“We completely failed on risk,” Bankman-Fried stated, noting: “That feels pretty embarrassing, in retrospect.”
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