Bankman-Fried blames Binance CZ’s ‘fateful tweet’ for FTX collapse

FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has once again come out to explain what transpired in the run-up to the platform’s collapse alongside responding to allegations of fraud.

In particular, SBF has partly laid the blame on Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) for being the engineer behind the exchange’s collapse in a ‘targeted attack’ coupled with a tweet he termed ‘fateful,’ he said in a blog post published on January 12.

“Then came CZ’s fateful tweet, following an extremely effective months-long PR campaign against FTX–and the crash. <…> But the November crash was a targeted attack on assets held by Alameda, not a broad market move,” he said.

The tweet in question saw the Binance boss announce that the exchange was moving to liquate its FTT tokens, the native cryptocurrency of FTX. However, Zhao has maintained his innocence in the collapse, accusing SBF of not being transparent in his FTX management.

SBF on stealing funds

In the blog post, SBF also touched on other topics, such as the growth of FTX and its sister trading company Alameda Research. However, the embattled founder failed to delve more into allegations of misappropriating customer funds.

“I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away. Nearly all of my assets were and still are utilizable to backstop FTX customers,” he said.

He pointed out that the allegations of stealing customers were inappropriate, noting that the crypto market has witnessed other high-profile collapses due to liquidity crunches. It’s worth noting that some of the collapsed firms were directly linked to FTX.

Compensating former FTX customers

Even as FTX lawyers in the ongoing bankruptcy case note that they had located about $5 billion in crypto and cash for creditor compensation, Bankman-Fried added that he was willing to channel his shares in Robinhood to reimburse customers.

Notably, SBF, who has already been charged over his role in the FTX collapse, maintains that he believes the company could have survived if he had been left in charge.

He also promised to release more information on the FTX crisis stating that the blog post was just a start.

In the meantime, the prosecutors allege that Alameda and FTX were not sustainable entities but a conduit for Bankman-Fried’s fraud.

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