Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) continues to make news on the cryptocurrency market. Recently, the face behind collapsed exchange FTX gave an interview to The New York Times (NYT) in which he appeared calm and said that the collapse of his companies is not keeping him from sleeping.
“You would’ve thought that I’d be getting no sleep right now, and instead I’m getting some. It could be worse,” said SBF.
However, what really caught the attention of the blockchain milieu was the direction the NYT article took.
The Twitter profile of Trung Phan, for example, pointed out that words associated with the FTX case, like “fraud,” “crime,” “illiquidity” and “back door, were not mentioned in the publication, as they were in other media sources.
"In NYT article, Alameda CEO admits to misappropriating FTX customer deposits. Per FTX Terms of Service, the deposits are not FTX’s to use…and FTX can’t loan it. NYT writes it up FTX “used” and “lent” deposits. Think the appropriate words are: “wire fraud,” “stole,” “theft”".
Sharing the mentioned tweet, Cardano creator Charles Hoskinson said:
"Guys it might be a good idea to donate some money to certain politicians. It seems that you can get away with anything and have zero media accountability."
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was also outraged by the NYT content.
"Twitter has broken just about every piece of this FTX story using blockchain analytics, while NYT is writing puff pieces on a criminal. Feels like a turning point for citizen journalism and loss of trust in MSM."
Crisis on crypto market caused by FTX
The outrage ensued as the fall of SBF’s empire brought a meltdown to the cryptocurrency market.
Not only has the price of Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins been affected, but companies have started to declare insolvency. An example of this is BlockFi, a crypto credit platform that can file for judicial recovery.
Last Thursday, BlockFi paused customer withdrawals, and earlier this week, the company reaffirmed that it would keep withdrawals paused and limit activity.
This all came about as BlockFi relies heavily on FTX, as it had a $400 million line of credit on the bankrupt exchange.
On Friday, Nov. 11, Sam Bankman-Fried announced his departure as CEO of FTX and was replaced by J. Ray III, who has already worked in restructuring companies after bankruptcy, such as Enron Corporation.
Additionally, SBF has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection not only for the cryptocurrency exchange but also for Alameda Research and an additional 130 companies affiliated with FTX.
Dan Burgin
Vladislav Sopov