Sam Bankman-Fried speaks with Andrew Ross Sorkin during The New York Times DealBook Summit in New York City on November 30, 2022.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried said that crypto investors should look for “all the things I wish FTX had been able to supply” when depositing their funds.
He called on exchanges to provide proof of reserves and regulatory reporting of assets and liabilities.
FTX’s new chief executive John Ray III has slammed the group for its lack of corporate controls.
Crypto investors should look for exchanges that don’t do business like FTX when choosing where to deposit their funds, according to Sam Bankman-Fried.
Speaking at the New York Times DealBook summit Wednesday, the bankrupt group’s former chief executive said that traders should only put their money into exchanges that provide proof of reserves and regulated reporting of customers’ assets and liabilities.
“I obviously don’t know exactly what’s going on at other exchanges. I can tell you what I would think as a customer,” Bankman-Fried said. “If I were a customer here, which is look for the things that I wish FTX had been able to supply.”
“Proof of reserves is helpful,” he added. “Look for as rigorous of that as you can look for regulatory reporting.”
Bankman-Fried’s comments came in a wide-ranging interview where he admitted he had “screwed up” when he was in charge of FTX – but denied trying to commit fraud.
FTX filed for bankruptcy last month after a report alleged that its sister trading firm held a significant position in its native token FTT, leading to a solvency crisis.
New CEO John Ray III slammed the group’s lack of corporate controls in a Chapter 11 filing released on November 17.
The restructuring expert – who previously oversaw the reorganization of failed energy firm Enron – said that FTX held just $659,000 worth of crypto against its claimed reserves of $5.5 billion.
Ray also said that it was impossible to rely on any of the group’s financial statements because it didn’t have its own accounting department and was audited by a little-known firm that had an office in the metaverse.