Crypto chief executives are known to write long Twitter threats and the disgraced CEO of the FTX crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, is no different.
On Friday morning, the CEO published an apology thread comprising of five parts in which he confirmed that the crypto exchange had indeed filed for bankruptcy, along with its affiliated companies, including FTX US.
The bankruptcy
Speaking of the bankruptcy proceedings, he disclosed that they had also filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings for Alameda Research.
He then apologized for having ended up in such a position. It should be noted that just a few days ago, the CEO had reassured FTX users and said that the debt of the company’s international arm would not affect them.
On Thursday, he had told the users of FTX US that they were not going to be financially affected, a statement that turned out to be false.
In Friday’s thread, the CEO stated that it did not mean that the companies were finished and they could no longer provide funds and value to their clients.
When talking about the slide of the FTX crypto exchange into insolvency, Bankman-Fried actually made use of the passive voice.
He implied that he did not have any idea as to how the company had unraveled. He said that he was putting things together, but he was shocked at how it had happened.
He added that he would soon write a play by play of the events, but he wanted to get the details right, so it would take a while.
The apology
This was Bankman-Fried’s second apology thread published on Twitter, as he had published another earlier in the week.
The first one had come after the news that FTX had debts of about $4 billion. The previous apology had 22 parts and had been published on Thursday.
The executive had written it in all-caps and had tried to give justifications for his actions and give explanations for his behavior.
He had also given indications that he would share more about a rival, likely referring to Changpeng Zhao, Binance’s CEO.
The trouble
Problems had begun in the week before that for FTX when a report disclosed that its sister entity, Alameda Research, had significant holdings of the FTT token on its balance sheet.
This is the native utility token of the FTX crypto exchange and Bankman-Fried owns Alameda Research. The report had pushed CZ to announce that Binance would sell its FTT holdings.
Binance had gotten the FTT tokens when it had sold its equity in FTX last year. The announcement saw other investors and traders join the sell-off.
This resulted in the price of the FTT coming down and the loss in investor confidence in the FTX crypto exchange resulted in liquidity problems for it.
Now, it has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which means it is no longer in business.
The CEO’s apology obviously got a negative response, as people began to doubt his statement about being shocked when he was the top executive of the exchange.
