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Now you can provide financial aid to FTX's former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), by subscribing to his substack feed and becoming a voluntary pledgee. No, this is not a joke!
Holy shit - @SBF_FTX just launched a Substack! Lol
Issue 1 highlights below. 👇
BTW, should I join the Founding Tier for only $150/year? I’m stealing from SBF at that price.
Downside: can’t pay in crypto… missed opportunity to create an $FTT use case. pic.twitter.com/bqSmnrlvfm
— Compound248 (@compound248) January 12, 2023
Just moments ago, Sam Bankman-Fried published the first blog on his personal substack page. Moreover, as is evident from the tweet above, those who remain sympathetic to the disgraced CEO's cause now have the opportunity to contribute to his financial well-being. Apparently, stealing billions of dollars from FTX's clients was not enough to satiate SBF.
In his blog, Sam Bankman-Fried attempts to present his own point of view on how things got so very wrong at FTX. SBF blames leverage, the failure of Alameda to adequately hedge its positions, and the supposedly nefarious role that Binance's CZ Zhao played in bringing about one of the largest bankruptcies in America's corporate history. Apparently, everyone is to blame other than SBF.
As a refresher, the crypto exchange FTX maintained an undisclosed synergetic relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto trading arm, Alameda Research, replete with commingled funds at the Silvergate bank, which allowed Alameda the convenience of borrowing FTX client funds after posting collateral in the form of illiquid tokens, including FTX's in-house FTT coin. This gig ended when Alameda's outsized exposure to the FTT token became public knowledge in early November, prompting Binance to dump its own FTT holdings, collapsing the token's price. Amid this fracas, the then-CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, gave away the trading firm's floor price on the FTT token, inviting a veritable onslaught of speculative attacks. With Alameda's ability to pay off its liabilities impaired as its collateral of illiquid tokens quickly lost their inflated values, and with surging client withdrawals resulting in a bank run, FTX had no choice, in the end, to declare bankruptcy.
Just yesterday, FTX's attorney, Adam Landis of Landis Rath & Cobb, declared in the bankruptcy court:
"We have located over $5 billion of cash, liquid cryptocurrency and liquid investment securities measured at petition date value. [It] just does not ascribe any value to holdings of dozens of illiquid cryptocurrency tokens, where our holdings are so large relative to the total supply that our positions cannot be sold without substantially affecting the market for the token."
This, of course, bodes well for ensuring at least partial recoveries of funds that lie trapped within the bowels of FTX. In his blog, Sam Bankman-Fried contends that he left "roughly $8b of assets of varying liquidity" at FTX. He also asserts that he did not "steal funds" or "stash billions away." Of course, this is exactly what we expect from SBF now that he has taken a "not guilty" plea in the court. Meanwhile, the drama continues.
Do you think Sam Bankman-Fried will be able to attract sizable donations via his substack? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Update: Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) Turns Off Voluntary Pledges Option
Reasonable thread!
And yeah I didn't realize it would ask for contributions, I turned that off just now 😛
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) January 12, 2023
In a step that we appreciate, Sam Bankman-Fried has turned off the option for voluntary pledges. If SBF wants to propogate his view point, he should not even think of asking for such contribitions.
