Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX who is now under indictment for allegations of fraud, has returned to his substack, declaring that FTX US was and is solvent. Bankman-Fried previously provided an FTX “post-mortem” following his release on bail.
He disputes a statement by Sullivan & Cromwell [S&C]that indicates there is a shortfall in both FTX and FTX US, stating:
“These claims by S&C are wrong, and contradicted by data later on in the same document. FTX US was and is solvent, likely with hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of customer balances. In the presentation that S&C formally filed on the Delaware Chapter 11 court docket, S&C failed to include $428m in FTX US’s bank accounts as an asset.”
Bankman-Fried claims that FTX US has an additional $428 million in bank accounts on top of the $181 million in digital assets.
He adds that when he let go of his company FTX US had at least $111 million in excess cash.
“S&C claims that FTX US has a shortfall. That claim is false. Based on S&C’s own data provided in the same court presentation, FTX US had roughly $609m of assets ($428m USD in bank accounts, plus $181m of tokens) backing roughly $199m of customer balances. FTX US was solvent when it was turned over to S&C, and almost certainly remains solvent today.”