Bankman-Fried Puts Off House Testimony on FTX

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For­mer FTX CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) said Sun­day he would be will­ing to tes­ti­fy before con­gress, but would need to fin­ish learn­ing about the implo­sion of his cryp­to empire before he commits.

SBF was asked by chair­woman of the House Finan­cial Ser­vices Com­mit­tee, Max­ine Waters, to attend a hear­ing on Dec. 13 explain­ing his side of events. 

Appear­ing before con­gress would like­ly ratch­et up pres­sure against the for­mer FTX CEO and increase the spot­light on exact­ly what occurred over that past month and how the exchange was able to fall apart so quickly.

“We appre­ci­ate that you’ve been can­did in your dis­cus­sions about what hap­pened at FTX,” Waters tweet­ed at Bankman-Fried on Fri­day. Waters added that his will­ing­ness to speak up will help affect­ed stake­hold­ers, includ­ing cus­tomers whose dig­i­tal assets remain locked on the platform.

The rep­re­sen­ta­tive for California’s 43rd con­gres­sion­al dis­trict was imme­di­ate­ly crit­i­cized by some in the cryp­to com­mu­ni­ty for appear­ing servile and obse­quious. The rela­tion­ship to Bankman-Fried in the past has been paint­ed as attempts to fur­ther reg­u­late the indus­try and cozy up over polit­i­cal dona­tions made to spe­cif­ic mem­bers of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

In a tweet­ed response to Waters’ request, Bankman-Fried said he would head to Wash­ing­ton DC only when he was ready, and fol­low­ing a review of events.

The polite refusal to tes­ti­fy comes despite Bankman-Fried’s mul­ti­ple main­stream media inter­views which he used to deflect some of the heat over his role in FTX’s implo­sion, includ­ing with CNBC and ABC News last week.

Both inter­views have been crit­i­cized for their soft­ball approach to ques­tions over Bankman-Fried’s role in the com­min­gling of cus­tomer funds with Alame­da — esti­mat­ed to have blown an $8 bil­lion hole in FTX’s bal­ance sheet.

It’s not known whether this post­pone­ment is a result of legal advice SBF has received, or if house mem­bers will seek to com­pel his testimony.


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