Sam Bankman-Fried Unlikely to Testify Before Congress in December

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) appears willing to talk to U.S. lawmakers about the collapse of his crypto exchange, though he is not sure when that will happen, SBF said via Twitter on 4 December.

SBF made the comment in response to a 2 December tweet from U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who invited him to participate in a House Committee on Financial Services hearing — scheduled for 13 December — to discuss the collapse of FTX. SBF noted that it is his “duty” to appear before the committee and explain the events that led to FTX filing for bankruptcy, but only when he has “finished learning and reviewing what happened”.

The ex-CEO received the invitation following a string of media appearances in which he tried to push the narrative that the fall of the exchange was caused by bad risk management in his companies, and the crypto market crash. Many in the industry, however, continue to think that he was actively involved in the commingling of company and customer funds despite his claims, with the Blockchain Association’s Head of Policy, Jake Chervinsky, suggesting that he was avoiding the hearing as “lying to Congress under oath is less appealing” than lying to reporters.

SBF made his first public appearance since the collapse of his company during a live interview at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit on 30 November, where he claimed he “unknowingly commingled funds”. On 2 December he also participated in an interview with Bloomberg, in which he was asked about an $8 billion budget shortfall that forced this company into bankruptcy. SBF — who minored in math while graduating from MIT — once again feigned ignorance and claimed the money was “misaccounted” rather than misplaced. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted on the next day: