[imagesource: Twitter / @ben_kew]

If you think you’ve had a bad two weeks, meet Sam Bankman-Fried, or SBF as he has long been known.

Dubbed ‘crypto’s white knight’, SBF’s world and his personal net worth have come crashing down in the most dramatic fashion.

Bloomberg called it “one of history’s greatest-ever destructions of wealth” as he went from a net worth of $16 billion to a net worth of well, pretty much zero in a matter of days.

Elon Musk recounted a call he had with SBF where the Twitter owner’s “bullshit meter was redlining” and it’s fair to say Musk was on the money.

SBF has spent days putting out a statement of sorts on Twitter, culminating in this:

32) Anyway — none of that matters now.

What matters is doing the best I can.

And doing everything I can for FTX’s customers.

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022

He’s also been sending DMs to a reporter from Vox, Kelsey Piper, where he discussed the epic implosion of FTX, the crypto exchange platform he founded and was CEO of.

You can read the full interview here. We’ll get the highlights via The Daily Beast.

Bankman-Fried regrets filing for bankruptcy

“I fucked up,” he acknowledged to Vox. “Big…multiple times.” But perhaps “my single biggest fuckup,” he declared, was filing for bankruptcy after FTX failed to secure a bailout, leaving it on the brink of collapse. Around the same time, Bankman-Fried was booted as CEO, and the new regime, he asserted, is “trying to burn it all to the ground out of shame.” Had he just waited another month, he grumbled, he might have been able to unfreeze the withdrawal process and make customers whole.

Instead, he’s now trying to raise the small matter of $8 billion to try and save FTX.

That will be hard to come by given that his reputation lies in tatters and nobody seems to want to touch FTX with a barge pole.

His philanthropic persona was at least partially bogus

Bankman-Fried spoke endlessly about the philanthropic movement known as effective altruism, which advocates working to “help others” as efficiently and productively as possible…

The fallen billionaire admitted to Vox that some of his public statements about ethics were little more than PR baloney. “I feel bad for those who got fucked by it,” he said, referring to “this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths so everyone likes us.”

A billionaire who wasn’t as charitable or earnest as he made out in public? Shocking.

Bankman-Fried admits his work with regulators was a farce

The former FTX leader had cultivated relationships in Washington, testifying before Congress and speaking with regulators and lawmakers. It turns out that was all a sham. His real opinion, per Wednesday’s interview: “Fuck regulators.”

According to Bankman-Fried, bureaucrats are inept at differentiating good actors from bad ones—and not just in the world of crypto…

After the Vox article was published, Bankman-Fried walked back some of his comments on Twitter.

That smell is the final, tiny chance of that $8 billion bailout going up in smoke.

After the article went live, SBF tried to do some damage control on Twitter, saying “there are regulators who have deeply impressed me with their knowledge and thoughtfulness”.

Regarding all those customer funds that appear to have vanished, FTX said he “didn’t mean to” do “sketchy” stuff. While my legal expertise is limited, I’m not sure that will hold up in court.

It’s believed that the United States and Bahamian authorities are discussing the possibility of extraditing him to the US for questioning.

[source:dbeast]