Tech

SBF huet laang, éierlech Gespréich mam Vlogger

11/29/2022
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Former FTX head Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) selected cryptocurrency vlogger Tiffany Fong for a series of lengthy and candid telephone interviews. In the two interviews that had been released on YouTube at press time, SBF speaks about many of the major questions connected with the collapse of FTX.

The first interview was conducted Nov. 6 and verëffentlecht Nov. 29 on YouTube. “I’ve started to trust my gut on things like this,” SBF said, explaining why he selected the relatively unknown figure to speak to. Fong has less than 10,000 subscribers to her channel. “Here’s someone who will, like, approach this from at least a somewhat neutral and interested vantage point,” he said of her. He continued:

“We as a society, in my opinion, my humble opinion, have spent quite enough time this week trying to figure out whether anyone living in [the FTX residential facility in] Albany [Bahamas] was polyamorous […] and the answer is too boring for people to believe.”

D'Opnahm huet ugefaang mam SBF ze soen: "Dir kommt net an d'Situatioun wou mir akomm sinn, wann Dir, wéi, all déi richteg Entscheedunge maacht." De Fong huet hiren Interview ugefaang andeems hien iwwer d'"Backdoor" gefrot huet, déi SBF erlaabt "Commande auszeféieren déi d'Finanzrecords vun der [FTX] Firma änneren kënnen ouni anerer ze alarméieren."

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SBF expressed surprise at the very idea. “And this is something I would be doing?” he asked. “That I can tell you is definitely not true. I don’t even know how to code. […] I literally never even opened the code for any of FTX.”

This set the tone for the rest of the conversation, in which Fong politely asked hardball questions and SBF answered with seeming openness.

SBF went on to comment on FTX’s FTT coin. “I think it had real value. That being said, there are a few problems. […] This was f*****g embarrassing given my background. […] I think it was basically more legit than a lot of tokens in some ways. Its was more economically underpinned than the average token was,” he said.

“Illiquidity didn’t cause the crash,” SBF continued. Rather, it was “the massive correlation of things during market moves, especially when they are triggered by fear over the position itself.”

SBF agreed with Fong that “the recovery looks pretty slim” for international customers, while “U.S. is a hundred percent. If its Amazon account had not been turned off, “they could already be withdrawing.”

Verbonnen: FTX Zesummebroch fiert Virwëtz ronderëm Sam Bankman-Fried, Google Daten weisen

Speaking about his political activities, SBF said, “I donated about the same to both parties. […] All of my Republican donations were dark.” He addressed rumors about money laundering of Ukrainian donations:

"D'Ukraine? Ech wënschen ech hätt dat ofgezunn. Ech wënschen. Ech hunn d'Zil net ganz verstanen. Ech war hëllefen d'Ukraine Geldwäsch fir d'Demokratesch Partei? Ech weess net firwat d'Ukraine Geldwäsch fir d'Demokratesch Partei ass. Ech weess net wéi se géifen oder firwat se géifen.

In the second, undated, phone interview, SBF Adress the use of FTX customer funds by Alameda Research. Struggling for words, SBF said that he should have thought more about “what a hyper-correlated cross-scenario looks like. It’s the oldest game in the book in finance. […] There was no one person in charge of monitoring risk positions at FTX.” Fong pressed for specifics from the situation, with little success.

SBF took a moderate position on the role of Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in the FTX downfall. “Things would certainly be a lot more stable and there would be a lot more ability to generate liquidity […] and I don’t know for sure.”

Asked about the impact of the collapse of FTX and surrounding scandal on him, SBF said, “I wake up each day and think about what happened, and I have hours per day to ruminate on it. […] It’s different than what it seems to other people.”