Bankman-Fried says he 'f*cked up,' will shut down Alameda trading

Quick Take

  • FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried apologized on Twitter after his crypto exchange collapsed and said Alameda’s winding down trading.

  • Bankman-Fried kept quiet while Binance was considering buying FTX because his “hands were tied.”

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried apologized for the collapse of his crypto exchange, saying he is “sorry” and that Alameda Research will wind down trading.

“I'm sorry. That's the biggest thing,” Bankman-Fried said in a tweet. “I f*cked up, and should have done better.” 

The CEO also said the company will be "spending the week doing everything we can to raise liquidity," which it would first be returned to users. He also promised transparency should FTX continue operating.

FTX collapsed this week after a run on its utility token, FTT, was sparked by a tweet by Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao saying his firm would sell its FTT holdings. Binance, a rival exchange, agreed to buy FTX.com, but changed its mind a day later and backed out of the deal. Bankman-Fried's empire now appears to be on the brink.

"I also should have been communicating more very recently. Transparently--my hands were tied during the duration of the possible Binance deal; I wasn't particularly allowed to say much publicly. But of course it's on me that we ended up there in the first place," Bankman-Fried said. 

Bankman-Fried further claimed that FTX is only facing liquidity issues, implying that it's not insolvent.

"FTX International currently has a total market value of assets/collateral higher than client deposits (moves with prices!). But that's different from liquidity for delivery — as you can tell from the state of withdrawals. The liquidity varies widely, from very to very little," he said.

The CEO said he's focusing on raising liquidity and the priority will be to make users whole before investors. 

He also made clear that the ongoing situation is about FTX International. "FTX US, the US based exchange that accepts Americans, was not financially impacted by this shitshow." 


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