The founder of the ill-fated cryptocurrency platform FTX, Sam Bank man-Fried, pledged on Friday to testify by videoconference before a committee of the House of Representatives of the United States next Tuesday.
In a message from Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) in which he responded to an interpellation by Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Bankman-Fried said that he still does not have access to many of his professional or personal data, but that he is still willing to testify on December 13.
“There is a limit to what I can say and I will not be able to be as useful as I would like,” lamented the disgraced entrepreneur.
Since FTX’s failure, Bankman-Fried maintains that it was not aware that client funds were being redirected to its partner investment firm, Alameda, one of the main reasons that led to its bankruptcy.
In a virtual interview broadcast live by The News York Times in November, Bankman-Fried said she did not “knowingly” mix funds, that he was not the one who ran Alameda and that he has only learned of what was happening in recent weeks, when the facts have been publicly revealed.
FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11 and at the end of that same month, the new managers of the company appeared for the first time before the bankruptcy court of the state of Delaware (USA) to begin the restructuring process.
Lawyers for the new board and its current manager, John Ray, argue that a “substantial amount” of the company’s assets may have been stolen or are missing.
The new managers have also denounced that the company had a “total absence of corporate controls” and a lack of “reliable financial information”.
The platform, which was once valued at $32 billion, could have more than a million creditors worldwide. So far, the company has admitted it owes more than $3 billion to its top 50 creditors.
However, Bankman-Fried blames the bankruptcy in part on the massive cryptocurrency sale that occurred earlier in the year. For the founder of the company, that sale halved the FTX guarantee, of about 30,000 million dollars.
At that point, according to Bankman-Fried, the sale of cryptocurrencies continued, combined with a credit crunch and a “bank flight,” which reduced the collateral to $9 billion before FTX filed for bankruptcy.
