SBF Summoned to Congressional Hearing on FTX’s Downfall

The former CEO of the FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has been officially included as a witness for the Congressional hearing on the collapse of the crypto exchange. The hearing will take place on December 13.

SBF to testify at Congressional hearing

A government memo has confirmed that Bankman-Fried is being called to testify as a witness before the US House of Representatives Committee of Financial Services. The FTX and Alameda founder will be testifying before US legislatures at 10 a.m. on December 13.

Besides Bankman-Fried, the other witness that has also been called to testify is the current CEO of FTX, John J. Ray III, overseeing the firm’s bankruptcy proceedings. Ray’s testimony will be heard before that of Bankman-Fried.

The former FTX CEO is being accused of mismanaging user funds by loaning them to other of his companies, including Alameda. Bankman-Fried also allegedly failed to manage risks. He is also being investigated for market manipulation.

Last week, Maxine Waters, a Democrat Congresswoman and the head of the Committee of Financial Services, urged Bankman-Fried to testify before US legislatures and provide insight into the demise of FTX. Waters noted that Bankman-Fried’s testimony was critical to US customers affected by the exchange’s collapse.

“Based on your role as CEO and your media interviews over the past few weeks, it’s clear to us that the information you have thus far is sufficient for testimony. As you know, the collapse of FTX has harmed over one million people. Your testimony would not only be meaningful to Members of Congress, but is also critical to the American people,” the legislature added.

Bankman-Fried has already agreed to testify before the house. Still, he has noted that there is a limit to what he can reveal during the testimony because he did not have access to most of his personal and professional data.

Bankman-Fried’s media strategy

Bankman-Fried has remained vocal on Twitter and has even gone on several interviews since the FTX exchange collapsed. With the exchange having around one million creditors, some have viewed his strategy to explain his side of the story as a PR mechanism.

One of his most publicized interviews in recent weeks was at the New York Times Dealbook Conference. Bankman-Fried was among the speakers at the conference, denying that he had engaged in fraud. He has repeatedly said he would do right by the exchange’s customers.

However, his media strategy is not being taken positively by everyone. The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, recently said that Bankman-Fried was the greatest fraudsters in history. The two also recently engaged in an online altercation on claims that Binance had caused the bank run on FTX.

Last week, Bankman-Fried also seemed to support the idea of launching a new FTT token that would be used to reimburse the exchange’s customers. He suggested that the team currently in charge of FTX explore this option. However, the crypto community on Twitter seemed to disagree with such plans.

Related

• SBF Refutes He Tried to Attack Tether and “Hunted” Terra Positions of Three Arrows
• SBF Hires Lawyer of Notorious Offender to Defend Himself
• The collapse of FTX was criminal, not accidental