Foreign, Foreign foreign foreign. what is going on? We are a just under 15 minutes out from San Bateman Freed's first live interview ever since the FTX collapse. He's chatted with a couple people, some DMS a couple recorded voice messages back and forth. but this is going to be the first live interview with Mr Sam Bankman Freed the potentially sociopathic, definitely disgraced ex-ceo of FTX And this is just a little bit of a guess of mine. but I think if we were to move forward a couple years, this is probably going to go down as one of the largest financial crimes slash fraud. even though I'm not a lawyer. I don't speak legalese very much seems like fraud. That's what happens when you steal clients money and use it in a hedge fund to trace bad bets and then make it even worse. But who knows. I'm not a lawyer. but I think we could call it fraud going down ever I think it's going to be literally a a case study. it's going down in the history bucks. it's gonna be crazy. But anywho, Sam Bakeman freed like I said were a couple minutes out, 10 minutes out before it all gets nuts. nuts nuts now. I Would love to feel like any questions about what in the world is going on here or get your thoughts, comments, concerns because we're like I said a couple minutes out. Uh, but before we get into that, uh, if everyone could just show a little bit of love to today's stream sponsor I'm talking about Enviro Cleanse. They have air purifiers. They have surface wipes. They have stuff for your laundry. Odor Control They have soap. All this stuff. Well anyway. look at what's pinned to the top of that. Also, look at what's in the description of the video. You can follow that for the link. But if you use the code matte, M-a-t-t-m-a-t-t you will get 10 off code. Matt Get you 10 off. Check it out! Uh I Personally have been using the air purifier to test it. Trusted in over 300 000 classrooms. It's trusted by the government. It's in all their fancy schmancy buildings. it's in submarines. all that good stuff. So shout out to: Enviro Cleanse. Check out the air purifier, check out what else they have. Fast and free shipping USA Made 30-day guarantee non-toxic patented technology. Use the code Matt at checkout. M-a-t-t for 10 off and obviously a shout out for Enviro Cleanse for making this all possible and sponsoring the Channel With all that out of the way, just add a little bit of framework to this just because obviously FTX is integral in the world of crypto. as we're gonna get into this just maybe for a little bit of posterity's sake. Uh, Bitcoin Currently trading just above 17 000 and Ethereum trading just below 1300. So I think that's good for you know Generations down the line when they're watching this and saying whoa, what did that sociopath who stole all that money end up saying in his first interview? hopefully in the future Bitcoin and Ethereum and really I hope everything is way way higher than it is right now. but I just wanted to give a little bit of grounding I suppose for this particular conversation uh I Know the timing is this isn't normally when we do the show or anything, but surprisingly the New York Times entry store can uh Sam Bakeman freed None of the three called me up and asked when we should have this schedule so I wasn't able to get it scheduled with the normal Matt core show time. So to everyone who is showing up I appreciate it I appreciate it. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you uh uh. it's really. it's really awesome that you guys made the the effort to be here and I'm sure this is going to get interesting. I Mean what a wild day! We had the GDP revision this morning. came in better than expected so that was awesome. Uh, but we also live in that weird world where good economic news is bad for the market. So we went down and then around midday, the leader of the FED chairman Jerome Powell had a speech at the Brooking Institute and he basically heavily hinted at the fact that in December it's going to be 50 bips and we might be out of this world of 75.75. percent rate increases of the Market's like sick. It seems like you're not being as hawkish at least as you were recently in the market. Really, really like that. I mean it ripped. Uh, closed at 407.70 I Want to say it was up over three percent. A lot of things rip. Unfortunately, there were some meme Darlings that had a red day, but everything else beyond that had a crazy crazy good day. When is the interview? It's about in 10 minutes. so if you're watching this not live, if you're watching this as a recording and you just want to skip ahead to the interview, it's in about 10 minutes when it gets started. But if you're watching this live with me right now, man, we just gotta chat. this is time for us all kind of mentally check in with each other. Someone just said my eyebrows aren't on point. Uh, my apologies I Know that's why a lot of you not only come in for the streams, but also sign up. For My only fans is you're always expecting my I eyebrows to be as good as they possibly can be. So here we are. What a day! What a day! What a day! Oh, if you haven't already, make sure you hit that like button and make sure you subscribe. Liking on YouTube helps with the algorithm. liking on Rumble helps with the battle leaderboard. Both of them basically tell how dominant the goonie Community is and make sure you're subscribing. We're on our way to 54 000 on Rumble and we're trying to recapture 350 000 on YouTube. So make sure you're liking, make sure you're subscribing, helps with the algorithm, helps with my mental health. Thank you thank you thank you. All right I Just keep reloading this. Oh nope, that one is President Zielinski Uh, we are just waiting I like signed up for this on so many different emails to make sure we are uh, ready for this. Who's doing the email? uh Andrew Sorkin of Squawkbox CNBC uh Apparently the dude has a lot of jobs. Apparently he like works with the New York Times apparently he works on the script for billions and I I think he also has a myriad of children I I Honestly don't know who like how he comes up with the time. I I Don't know. he seems like he does a lot. Are you shorting chapstick? No super long dude. That's a good reminder I Appreciate that I appreciate that. Thank you thank you for that reminder. Uh, it's fabulously wonderful day. I'm thrilled. Not only am I happy to be here, but sometimes Justice occurs in my private life. A huge win just happened. Shout out congratulations to you Michelle I'm happy. Why do you invite a criminal? um criminals have stories to tell I I never got that uh like he Andrew circuit I'm not saying I'm like the biggest fan of them um but also I I'm interested in hearing what he has to say like people gave Andrew and CNBC in the New York Times like a lot of I guess grief for talking with them I I Want to know what's going on? This is a story that needs to be told. We need to know all sides of the story. I Want I think more information out there the better I I Truly don't understand why people are against these interviews being out there. um people were all about I guess bit boy going into the Bahamas to talk with them. There was uh another YouTuber that we played this morning who somehow like got on the phone and did some voice recordings with them. uh the only way I would be against it is if Andrew Sorkin asks softball questions I have no moral qualms with the questions being asked I just want them to be good questions if it's somehow done in a way where like it makes him seem good and they ask him softball questions or they're contorted in a way that like puts him in a positive light. Well of course I'm against that but just the general concept of talking I I'm in no way uh against that. What time is the interview in about five minutes? So you have time to get your tea, to get your coffee, to get your water? Uh, we're gonna get rocking though. we have about five minutes. Actually, this might be a good time to show you uh, some of the stuff from this morning on. Squawk Box What are we doing here? Uh I Want to find some of the clips about this? The market just crushed today. Maybe she need to get some like positivity in here, but who made it killing? I I Know some people uh, were just destroying it in the overall. Market and congratulations to you. Are you still in? AMC Yeah, of course I'm in AMC I Have ape I have Jamie you can. It's all publicly available I Find it interesting how many times I get that question like honestly, if you take 30 seconds of your day to do any research, you can see what I'm in. You can see what I'm doing um 100 like I Don't get it like take a little bit of effort, you can see I'm long on AMC you can see I'm long I'm ape Um but uh and I spoke about this earlier what we see going on with a right now it's crazy. It really really is. The amount of hopium in copium like it's ape is now officially a penny stock. It's officially a penny stock and the leadership team. The way that this was deployed what it was meant to be. Not only did it stab the shareholders in the back, it really financially hurt them. Really financially hurt them. Um. but I don't really care to talk about that right now. That's uh, this isn't the right place or time. This is the time to talk about one of the worst Financial crimes ever. And here's just a little bit of a Prelude of what to expect in the uh conversation that will be starting very soon right now. As promised, we want to get over to Andrew who joins us ahead of today's New York Times Deal Book Summit Andrew This is always a huge lineup every time you do deal book and this time is no exception. We can't wait to see what you have this morning. Thank you! Uh, it's funny because your Deal Books turns 21 years old. Uh, this year. Um, as you guys know, I Started in my pajamas back in the day when we were sending out the newsletter in some cases by fax machine. Uh, today we have about a million people who get it every single morning. Uh, we've got a huge day ahead. We're going to be dipping in live right here on CNBC throughout the day bringing you all the coverage. Let me give you a sense of what's on tap, kicking things off. I'm going to be speaking with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen here and then later we're going to talk to Blackrock CEO Larry Fink also on the deck Amazon CEO Andy Jassy So much to discuss with him, giving everything taking given everything that's going on in Tech the layoffs, labor and more. And then in the afternoon we've all talked about the Netflix correction repeatedly. Well, the man himself Netflix CEO or co-founder I should say Reed Hastings And then you know we also talk about Tick Tock and all of the issues with China and the security issues. Uh, the CEO is here show to is going to be with us. We're also going to spend some time with Ben Affleck who's starting a new movie studio and a lot lot more. Mark Zuckerberg is going to spend some time with us as well. and then at the end of the day and this is the one that I think a lot of people are waiting for but also has created a lot of controversy. I'm going to be speaking with FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman Freed. It will be his first live interview since the company collapsed. A lot of tough questions to be asked and hopefully answered about what happened there, accusations of course, of fraud, misrepresentation, mismanagement, and we're going to get into all of it. Nothing is off limits and I should say because I know there's been a lot of questions about it. It is going to be live streamed for free. Anybody can watch it. We're going to be putting out a link as planned a little bit later today and of course all this will be available on CNBC as well. So a big big day ahead Andrew That's what we've been talking about earlier. This interview with Sam Bankman Freda I mean this guy just seems wackier and wackier with stuff you read I I Know you were going to hold him down on every single one of these issues they're out there I Can't wait to see it. Any criticism Andrew is have this conversation. so I I Um, and thank you for 13th 14th. So you're going to be free for 10 days and so this will be in a sense the last word before we get into it. All right? I'm going to send it to the Deal Book Conference now you see Andrew Ross Sorkin walking on the stage for his conversation with Sam Bankman Freed and we're going to listen in to everybody. um and thank you again for the entire day. Uh, so that we can, uh, do what I think may be one of the most important interviews we will do Uh, today. Um, in the span of about one week Sam Bankman Freed Uh, went from a billionaire uh, the White Knight of the crypto world and running one of the largest exchanges to what some people think has become a wanted man FTX was once valued at 32 billion dollars. it's now effectively worthless in bankruptcy. We're going to talk about that and whether investors will ever get money back. you know, multiple billions owed to creditors and big questions in the wake of the collapse. Bitcoin fell to its lowest price in two years and on Monday Block Five, which had been bailed out by FTX filed for bankruptcy. The rapid fall of this Empire has left so many questions about crypto about the future of it and whether it can be trusted again. Sam Bankman Free joins us right now Live from the Bahamas Sam I Want to thank you for joining us? uh this afternoon Bahamas I Appreciate your willingness to have this conversation. As I said at the outset of today, there are a lot of questions that need to be asked and also need to be answered. As you know, a lot of people have been hurt, genuinely hurt and my hope is that over the time we have together that we can have a candid conversation about what happened, how it happened. there are people who are angry and they are seeking answers. I Just want everybody in the audience to know that I received thousands of letters and emails even the past couple days from a lot of these people who feel like they're victims and some of them have questioned whether we should have this conversation, whether we should have this interview. Um, well of course you people don't believe that this conversation should happen and I just want to say that I think our job as journalists is to have those conversations is to ask those questions and seek those answers on behalf of the public. And that is especially true right now. Sam Here's where I Want to start this conversation if we could. Um I think at this point there are two ways to view what has happened at FTX and I know we'll get into all of the details in a moment. but I'm just going to go very basic. Uh, there's a generous View and the generous view is that you are a young man who made a series of terrible, terrible, very, very bad decisions. The less generous view is that you have committed a massive fraud that this is a Ponzi scheme, a manipulation of the system and I want to start there because I think that there are so many people who have that question which is what is this and what did happen? Yeah, look, thanks for having me and Um and at the end of the day I I was CEO of FTX and that means whatever happened, why ever it happened I had a duty I had a duty to all of our stakeholders, to our customers uh, our creditors I had to do each of our employees to our investors and and to The Regulators of the world uh to do right by them to make sure the right things happen to the company and uh, clearly I didn't do a good job of that. Um, clearly I Um I made a lot of mistakes or things I would give anything to be able to do over again. Um I didn't ever, uh, try to commit fraud on anyone I I Was excited about the problem just happened I saw it as a thriving growing business I Was shocked by what happened this month and you know, reconstructing it I Where are there things I wish I had done differently. Well, let's let's talk about some of the things you you would want to have done differently. uh but I don't want this to be an abstraction. uh for folks because it's a lot of big numbers um and often doesn't feel human. Um, one of the the letters I got uh I want to read to you Sam Um, because it's from a gentleman who said that he lost his life savings and the subject line is sandbankment freed stole two million dollars from me, says Andrew Can you please ask SPF why he decided to steal my life savings and the 10 billion dollars more from customers to give to his hedge fund Alameda Can you ask him why his hedge fund was leveraging long all of these s coins I'm going to keep it polite for the kids. please ask him if he thinks the thinks what happened was fraud. These are the kinds of letters that I've been getting repeatedly over the past several days. What do you tell this this man? Yeah, um I mean I'm deeply sorry about what happened. Um, here's you know for longing short of what happened and I'll start by saying uh, just to make a distinction. here. you look at the U.S platform. You look at the international platform. The US platform uh is a US regulated platform with American users. to my knowledge, that's fully solvent, that's fully funded and uh, fully solve it. I Believe that withdrawals could be opened up today and everyone could be made whole from that. That none of these problems pray. Played the the US platform. Um, then you look at the international platform. Uh, you know for their non-us users and uh, I mean as the letter says, uh Alameda Research did have a long position and the international platform. It's a margin trading platform. It's a derivatives platform. It's a platform where all the clients were you know going on placing something as collateral and using that to put on a position. Whether that's a futurist position, a spot, position, a borrow, um, and you know what the exchange was storing was the collateral from all of those positions? uh Alameda research was you know one of those that put on positions there and as I try and reconstruct this. Um, you know over the last month I I have limited access to data. but um, my my my view of it. Um, from what I happen able to see is roughly that. Um, you know, basically like a year ago, um Alameda had I think something like 10 leverage. You know, had something like 10 times the assets of the position that it had on over the course of the last year. There were a number of Market crashes um that drove the value of those assets down and The Leverage up. Um I think it was to my knowledge, still under 2x leverage. you know, as of, uh, a month ago? Um, you look at the what happened this month and uh, you know in a few days all out um I mean PR assault which led to a total Market collapse in a pretty short period of time. No bidside liquidity. um I think more than 10 billion dollars wiped off in the matter of days and uh, realistically speaking, no ability for FTX to be able to to liquidate that position and generate everything that was owed. I Think the bigger question is where Alameda got the loan from. Which is to say that there is a view that this is about co-mingling of funds right? And and in that letter that I just read you? Um, this gentleman actually copy and pasted the terms of service for FTX into the email and I just want to read you this, it says None of the digital Assets in your account are the property of or shell or maybe loan two FTX Trading FTX Trading does not represent or treat digital assets and users accounts as belonging to FTX trading. So how is it possible that Alameda had this loan of such a large size? So there is that piece from the terms of service. Um, but there were a number of other parts of the terms as there's a number of other parts of the platform. On top of that, there is the borrow lending facility. We're lending billions of dollars of assets to each other. Um, you know, collateralized by assets on the exchange? Um, you had uh, and you got obviously Futures contracts where there are leveraged positions on. Now, of course, all of this. Um, it's meant to be the case that these are positions where FTX could uh if it needed to Margin Call those positions and close them down in times such that it would cover all of those, uh, you know, all those shorts, all those liabilities. Obviously, that wasn't the case here and that's a massive failure of oversight of risk management. Um, and of, uh, you know, diffusion of responsibility from from myself running FTX But just make this very straight. Was there commingling of funds? That's what it appears like. It appears like there's a genuine commingling of the funds that are of FTX customers that were not supposed to be commingled with your separate firm. I ain't knowingly coming. and again. One piece of this thing about the margin trading you have, you know, customers. One of those. I Was frankly surprised by how big Alameda's position was, which points to another failure of oversight on my part. Um, and uh, failure to appoint someone to be chiefly in charge of that. Uh, but uh, I wasn't trying to co-mingle funds, wasn't trying to. it just happened to her. Um told Almeda staffers that Alameda used FTX client funds to cover loans that were being recalled because of the Lunar triggered credit crunch Carolyn says that she Sam Gary were aware of this. How do you square that with what you originally said over Twitter that this was an eight billion dollar accounting mistake. So uh, I'll point to two things. and first of all, obviously I don't know what anyone else is thinking here. you know I can only talk about it from what I know from what I knew, um and a lot of this is reconstructing it. over the last month I've limited access to data but uh, but you know what it seems like happened is in the middle of the year. Um, uh, a lot of you know most of the borrow lending desks in this space blew out or closed down and um, it seems like Alameda had you know margin positions opened with them and that it likely moved a bunch of that over to FTX uh this year when they shut down and that means you know I I think it was over collateralized um positions. Um, but positions that involve substantial size and substantial US dollar size on the borrow side. Uh, in terms of the accounting mistake Um, again looking through what happened um I think that there is a substantial discrepancy between what the financials were, what the audience financials were, the true financials. um, what the exchange understood. All of that was was consistent um versus what the dashboards that we had displayed um for uh, for Alameda's account there, um, which substantially under displayed the size of that position and so, uh, that's one of the reasons that I was, uh, surprised when we dug into everything at how big that position had become. But but you would agree that there is a much more closely connected Um version of FTX International and Alameda than previously understood. Fair to say: I Yeah, I mean given the size of the position, I think it was, uh, if not in intention, it was in effect. uh, tied together substantially more than I would have ever wanted it to be. So you did an interview up earlier this summer with Bloomberg and you were asked about the connection between Alameda and FTX and you said uh, that obviously came from the the same place because that's it Started that way. um, and the same original people, but most of the remaining nexuses you said have dropped off I Know the people from Alameda decently well. almost as if you don't know what's happening there and there isn't like a large amount you know of ways remain that we are actively working together. Anything like that: Alameda is a wholly separate entity. They're different offices. Like different principal offices. We don't have any shared Personnel We're also not the same company. We not all are under the same corporate umbrella or anything like that. And yet it seems like Alameda people were living in the same Penthouse where you may very well be right now all together. um I most of Alameda was not. uh, was not there. uh I I don't live there now. but uh, or you know, not there now I have not uh lived there uh for most of the time. but you know I did live with with uh one or two members of Alameda for a little while. um. and I'll also say that you know as I was. you know earlier this summer looking at the relationship and this is a pretty big mistaken oversight of mine. I was viewing it primarily from the trading volume perspective because that's what drives our revenue. And so when I was looking at how intertwined are FKS and Alameda, you know I was looking at well, what fraction of trading volume? what fraction of liquidity on the platform does Alameda represent? that had fallen off from something like 45 in 2019 to something like two percent this year, but in terms of positions and balances, it was a much larger fraction I hadn't been looking at that. That's a pretty big but I think the question is whether you were supposed to have access and I decided to leave the bank at the end of the evening and take the cash that I O sensitively had access to even if I intended to bring it back to the bank later. even with more money to give them back I still stole the money I mean look, I wasn't running Alameda I didn't know exactly what was going on I didn't know the size of their position. Um, uh, a lot of these are things I've learned over the last month that I learned as I was sort of frantically digging into this on you know, November 6, November 7th, November 8th. Um, uh and and uh, obviously that that's a pretty big mistake on Market That's a pretty big oversight that I wasn't more aware. um I think I was you know scared of um I was nervous because of the conflict of interest about being too involved. um and uh. Obviously that shouldn't have meant that I didn't have real oversight um or that I really shouldn't have meant that I failed to appoint anyone to be in charge of that oversight. that relationship. Um, but I I haven't been running Alameda I haven't been. You know, thinking about its finances I haven't been You know, making uh, those decisions. uh uh. but you know, as CEO of FTX it was still my duty to make sure I was I was a large owner of it. That is true and I I had a lot of exposure on that side. Um, have you been focused on it? If in fact, that's actually where the profits were? Well, I don't know that that's where I mean I think Alameda had made trading profits over the last few years, but Fgfs had made profits as well. um FTX had been a you know, profitable, growing business um and Elements I didn't have the bandwidth to run two companies at once I have the you know attention for it. Um, and and again I was nervous about a conflict of interest between those two and so it was pretty intentional about not being uh, very involved in what was happening at Alameda when did the co-mingling of assets begin? So uh, and again, you know, lots of Traders had open margin positions on FTX where they would have borrows of of assets where they would be short some asset against uh, you know, against other assets as collateral. Um, that being said, I Again, looking through this now. Um I think that that position size for Alameda got substantially larger over the course of Uh 2022 and that it was I think substantially larger by October of 2022. Um, you know, probably by July of 22 then it had been in April But it sounds like it's fair to say that there was always a connection between Alameda and FTX and well, of course, but from the very very beginning and then it never really stopped. Well I think it had been in some ways reducing. I mean when you scroll back to 2019 alumin FTX were very connected in a number of ways. Um, you know one of these it was that Alameda was the primary liquidity fighter on FTX it was, you know, 40 something percent of volume. it was the backstop liquidity. Fighter Um, and you know you scroll forward to 2022. it was down to two percent of volume. Uh, we had a lot of backs off liquidity providers um, uh, but it still had a big margin position on and I I was failing to pay nearly enough attention uh to the positions and positional risk on the exchange. and two Alamedas in particular um, and I also frankly answer the mistake that I feel pretty embarrassed to have made. Um I mean a lot of these are, but I substantially underestimate what the scale of market crash could look like and what the speed of it could look like and how correlated. It's easy. Perhaps when did they take him that this would all work out and that nobody therefore would realize what this co-mingling was all about. So it's not how I viewed it. and in particular again, most of the firms had marching positions. most of the firms had boroughs on. FTX The problem here This one was this was too big. It was I was surprised by the size. It's the assets that look. It sounds like there were assets that may have been allowable to be loaned, but then there were assets that weren't allowable to be loan. No. So uh, I'm still looking into the details of some pieces of this, but I do think that um, in addition to um, what I'd seen is sort of a lot of the standard borrows here that um, we scroll back to 2018, uh or to 2019 I guess um FTX didn't have bank accounts. it didn't have any bank accounts globally. we were trying to get them. Um, it took us a while, took us a few years. Um, and you know there are customers who wanted to wire money to FTX and so I think in the meantime, um, some of them were wiring money to Alameda research to get credited on FTS and uh, I think that was a substantial sum. Uh, and I think that the Ftx's internal accounting did correctly effectively try to debit Alameda for those funds, but it didn't happen in the primary account and so it didn't happen it. You know it created a discrepancy between the display of the account and what was really going on there. and um I and I'm still looking into exactly how that this feels like it's going off in like a very bad fashion that that didn't make it feels like it's going to go really really poorly and I thought and I think then what you would have gotten from uh from both the normal Avenues What do you make of the argument that Alameda was used to effectively wash money into FTX that American investors who by the way were not technically allowed to even invest on FTX were doing so and FTX was doing it knowingly because the the know your customer rules were being flouted by using this separate vehicle. Uh, how would that allow customers to flood to know your customer? Uh, rules. I Are you talking about people who are trading on FTX Us or are you talking about customers of FTX International International You just said that there was money being sent to Alameda and that Alameda was then providing credits onto FTX right? But those users still had to go through to know your customer policy on FTS In order to do that in order to use that rant, customers still had to go through Ftx's normal Kyc onboarding. So when do you think you knew there was a problem? So um, uh, the time that I really knew there was a problem was November 6th. um November 6th was. uh, that was the date that the uh you know tweet about Ftt came out and I by late on November 6th we were putting together all of the data, putting together all the information that obviously I should have put together way earlier that obviously should have been part of the dashboards I was always looking at and um I You know when we looked at that, um, there was a potential serious problem there and I you know Alameda's position was big on FTX it had just taken a huge hit. um bad it had taken hits over the course of the year but that was a particularly you know large and and one and very abrupt. um and we're seeing a run on the bank start and that was leading to um I you know four billion dollars a day of a client withdrawals? Um, at that point you know we started calling prospective you know, sources of financing because I was I was nervous about what was going to happen there. um, you know if you rewind even a few days um I was I was a little bit nervous but not on nearly the same scale and I I was thinking about uh, you know risks that were substantially less. Uh, did you say you were nervous? You were nervous the company was going to go under. You were nervous you were going to get caught. What were you nervous about I on on like on November 6th or before then I think before then what I was nervous about was that basically um I and this started I would say November 2nd or so when there was uh, you know Alameda balance sheet. um, you know through coindesk and um and when I started uh to to think uh, a bit more about this um, you know I was nervous that that would lead to uh, substantial losses for Alameda um and that uh, you know it would be a bit messy I didn't think it was existential for Ftfs I didn't think it was going to lead to a, you know, massive loss for Ftx's customers. Um, I was thinking of this as um, more like Alameda is going to be really tight on funds and uh, uh, and that you know, maybe it would end up having some small impact on FTX but not not a significant one. not one that hurt customers at all. um, uh, when you're talking about November 6th, late, November 6th. Then and and especially as we bleed into November, 7th and 8th I start to become nervous that FTX is not going to be able to fill customer withdrawals and you know by by late November 6th I am very nervous about that. and I'm starting to think about like, uh, emergency scenarios and I'm starting to think about like things might, uh, things might end quite badly here. and and and the core metric that I'm thinking of there is will we be able to make sure all customers are whole and you know, uh on November 5th I was feeling quite good about that on uh, November 7th I was feeling quite uneasy about that I want to go back in time for a moment? Um, this summer you were described uh, oftentimes as the JP Morgan of crypto referencing the 1907 Panic that he helped prevent and you had, uh, purchased block Phi we're making investments in Uh Voyager and all sorts of other things when you were doing that at that time. How much of that was an effort to prop up the value of things like Ftt, which was the token of FTX Knowing what 50 of the time if a company like Block Fi, which owned a ton of it um, that if it, if it collapsed, Ftt would collapse and in large part the quote-unquote collateral that you had for Alameda would collapse. So uh I don't think any of the borrow lending guests, to my knowledge, owned a lot of Ftt. I think a lot of them, you know, may have been using it as collat or you know, taking it as collateral I don't think they owned it though. Um, or we're gonna sell it. and I think that most of them ended up closing down uh, effectively all of their lines with Alameda one way or another and so at that point I think that that was close to uh at some cost and um, and so I wasn't viewing it as having any any impact on Ftt in particular. Um, uh I did view it as important for the industry's health. I did view it as a thing where I I wanted to try to keep the industry stable. Um, but I don't think it had any you know, really large Ftt specific impact and did it have it? You didn't think it had any impact, it would have had no impact on Alameda or FTX if for example, Block 5 were to have failed. I I Don't think it would have had large direct impact. And the reason I say that is that I believe that Alameda ended up returning. vast majority of its open you know, borrowers of its marching positions with the bar lending desks in the middle of this year anyway, and so at that point there wasn't that much left to to save from that. um, uh, you know the Uh at that point I think the bigger thing was just not wanting the industry to implode. Let's talk about collateral because I think this is. this entire experience has been a revelation for a lot of people about what might be collateral. and clearly you were using uh, ftt, um, and Solana and other tokens uh as collateral and part of that required you to mark them in a specific way of value to them. Um, yep, Do you think that you were marking them properly? No ah, in his case, I don't think I was marking them uh the way I wish I had from a risk perspective and I want to differentiate your like expected value or or sort of like Worth or something like that from security and uh, you know I think that uh, I don't have any strong statements to make about. you know what values they're assigned from. sort of like, you know, a upside perspective or even a median case perspective. um, but clearly I was uh, I was not nearly cautious enough from a downside perspective from an extreme downside perspective and um, you know I can tell you in my head I was looking at a 30 down move over a few day period as a sort of like extreme tail case event that you know we had seen once before. um and uh and then you know what happened here was a I mean a 95 down move over the course of a year um and a you know, 60 down move over a few day period with very little liquidity and all happening at once in all of these coins in a correlated fashion in which Hedges didn't mean as much. Also because this was a specific crash on assets associated with Alameda research rather than all assets and so you know, even correlated Hedges had limited use there um, and run on the bank at the same time and all that are things in retrospect I should have expected might happen in an extreme scenario because that's how markets work and you know we've seen other examples of that in history where when things get really bad, they get really bad for all of the relevant things at once in a very direct and correlated and quick way. I Want to go back to the blackfy uh acquisition for a moment? How much money do you think? Alameda I'd say that they had a lot of but that Alameda had borrowed from Block five at the time of the bailout. ah I honestly don't know. but I I would have guessed like 100 million, maybe a couple hundred million. but I I honestly don't know the answer that it wasn't I wasn't like where I am, it wasn't paying detail attention? That's my guess. And and were you using Ftt and serum and other things to collateralize the loans at Block Five? Do you think I mean this goes to the whole idea of both the value of these things and also whether you were trying to buy Block Fi in fact, to continue to support effectively Alameda or FTX right? you know it might be. Um, I I would guess it was, but but you know, to your point, my guess is that like the amount paid for for Block fry was probably bigger than the amount that Alameda had opened with it. I mean I I don't know that for sure again. I I uh but I wasn't even looking at what that number was really. but I think that's that's about right? I Want to go back to the Alameda piece of it for just another moment If you, if you'd stick with me here, you told investors and Regulators that you were not involved in Alameda decision making and yet in the case, Alameda invested 1.15 billion dollars in Genesis Digital assets. Um, without your consultation or approval that that's the question and my understanding is you also served on the board of Genesis Digital assets and so I'm trying to understand how you wouldn't have been involved with Alameda So I was somewhat involved with uh Venture investing and that was done out of a separate entity. um, than you know any of Alameda's proprietary trading uh, than its activity on FTX or other crypto exchanges. Um, uh, but I was uh, consulted on uh on some of it's It's VC Investments including with GDA what? What are your lawyers telling you right now? Are they suggesting this is a good idea for you to be speaking? they are very much not um, uh and uh I mean you know the classic advice: Rays don't say anything uh, you know, recede into a whole uh, and that's not who I am I mean it's not who I want to be I don't have I I think I have a duty to talk to people I have a duty to explain what happened and I think I have a duty to do everything I can to try and do what's right if there is anything I can do to to try and help customers out here and uh, I don't see what good is accomplished by me just sitting locked. Uh, you know, you know, in a room pretending the outside world doesn't exist? You're in the Bahamas right now. Are you in the Bahamas because you think you can't leave I I I'm in the Bahamas and I I have been in in the Bahamas for the last year and you know I've been running FTX from the Bahamas you know been running FTX digital Market our you know primary operating entity down here. um you know with with you know Bahamian uh regulators and uh, you know others in In In in contact and uh, you know right now I'm you know I'm looking to be helpful anywhere I can with any of the global entities that uh, you know that would want my help. Do you think you could come to the United States or go elsewhere? I I I to my knowledge I could have you thought about doing that I I've thought about it and um, you know I mean I mean I've seen a lot of the uh, obviously all the hearings that have been happening I you know, would not be surprised if you know sometime I Am you know up there talking about what happened to our Representatives or um, you know whatever else is is most appropriate How Concerned are you about criminal liability at this point? So I don't think that I mean obviously I don't I don't personally think that I have uh, you know but I think the real answer is that's not. It sounds weird to say, but but I think the real answer is that's not what I'm focusing on. Um, it's uh, there's gonna be a time and a place for me to sort of think about myself and my own future. but I don't think this is it like right now I mean look I I've had a bad month. um that's not what matters here. Like what matters here is the millions of customers. What matters here is all the stakeholders in FTX uh, who who got hurt and and trying to do everything I can to help them out and you know as long as that's the case. like I don't think that I don't think that you know what happens with me is the important part of that and I don't think that's what it makes sense for me to be focusing on Sam help me with this. Um, on November 7th you tweeted and then deleted a tweet that said quote FTX has enough to cover all climb Holdings we don't invest client assets, even treasuries. We've been processing all withdrawals and will continue to be unquote. You then deleted that tweet and literally just moments ago you told me it was on November 7th that things took a turn. Yep, um, you're telling the truth. So nope. things were changing fast and you know when you look at at November 6th I was feeling nervous but I felt like things were probably going to end up okay. we still had I mean you know, assets way larger than liabilities and um, uh, and yet there's increasing withdrawalt man. But we were meeting all of it. We were processing all of it although it was a weekend so we were a day delayed on a lot of wire transfers and stable coin creations and Bitcoin node was overloaded. but you know their assets were a continuous process by November 8th. Um, I did not think the odds were that high that we were going to be able to meet all client demand and I was worried that there was going to be a substantial liquidity shortfall November 7th That was sort of the transition day and you know, even just to start versus the end of November 7th I felt I felt fairly different. Um, you know and uh, I can't remember exactly who I was thinking or or when I sent that, but you know I remember trying to think about feeling conflicted about what to say and trying to think about what I could say that I believed and um, you know by by not that long later I no longer believed that I no longer that no longer felt like it had much like that was a a at all reasonable representation of where my mind was at and I don't remember exactly when I deleted. but I remember at some point it's like I shouldn't be there. Let me ask a different question because this is all around the same time the New York Times reported. Uh, that uh 515 million dollars was suspiciously in quote trans uh transferred from FTX wallets after after the bankruptcy filing. Yeah, and there have been accusations that this is the assistance effectively of theft. Where did that money go? So uh, I will caveat this by saying at that point I was being cut off from systems and so I'll I'll give you the answer to the extent that I know it. Um, which is that I believe that a few different things happened within a short period there. Um I Think that uh, the Uh Us team took actions to seize some of the assets and put it in custody um from The Exchange Um I Believe that the um Uh is announced that um, you know the Bahamian uh, Regulators um took some of the assets into safekeeping as well um around that same time um and I think they're made In addition to both of those also been uh, some actually improper access uh of assets on the exchange and I don't know the details of that I don't have uh, the resources to trace through exactly what happened there. um and I don't know who is behind that. Third part: I Want to go back to one thing about the Bahamas The payment authorities have now admitted effectively that they ordered the transfer. It sounds like a certain FTS FTX assets to while it's under the control after uh, the U.S bankruptcy was filed. Did you help them with that? Did you discuss that with them? So I I you know, can't discuss specifics but I Will note that prior to chapter 11, having been filed um, the Uh Bohemian authorities had placed Uh FTX Digital Markets uh, the Bohemian entity which is the primary operating entity of FTX International Um under supervision of a JPL system in the Bahamas with oversight from the Securities Commission of the Bahamas and you know were to my knowledge taking actions to protect Fdm's uh, you know clients, um, and and customers there. so can we just go back for just one second? I and I apologize for for belaboring this point, but we're talking about FTX and the derivative piece of it earlier. Um and I had made a note earlier about this uh because you had told the Senate so you were sitting in the Senate at the time on February 9th, 2022 during a year and you said quote on FTX U.S derivatives. Uh, all of these contracts are fully collateralized. Was that true? Yes and again FTX U.S To my knowledge, totally solvent FTX Us Derivatives Totally solvent and in fact, I believe FTX Us derivatives Ledger X may even be up and running right now. I'm confused why Ftic Us is not processing customer withdrawals right now I would think it should be because I believe the question could make all Americans 100 whole from this. So I and and Ftxus derivatives. As I said, there doesn't even allow leverage of any sort. Um, it was. you know, close to a spot trading platform. um and so uh yeah to my knowledge, All American customers and All-American regulated businesses and exchanges here are um uh I think uh, at least in terms of client assets are are are okay obviously I don't know what's happened with you know you can make your own judgments about the Enterprise value of those businesses. but um, over the summer you paid a 2.5 billion dollar loan to Barry Silbert's Genesis this was in August and I was just trying to think through the Dynamics of what might have been happening at your firm and was wondering where did the money come from So When you say you did that, I presumed that that's Alameda research that did that? Is that, right? Yeah, that's the case. So uh, I don't have all of the details there. but uh, my understanding is that and I don't know exactly what's going on on Genesis's side then I I don't know now. um, but um, my understanding is I believe Genesis tried to call in a large number of loans uh from Alameda um I believe that that happened and uh, that that closed down a lot of positions that Alameda had opened with Genesis and other trading desks and um, I you know that was what I was thinking at the time. Um, and that's I think what what happened there? um I Also think that may have led to an increase of position size of Alameda on FTX In retrospect, um, you you did an interview I think perhaps inadvertently uh over Twitter DMS uh with a reporter at Vox and had spoken about ESG but also about what you described as the shibboles of what it meant to look good in Corporate America Today, Um, and that a lot of the things that you were doing were not necessarily things you actually believed or believed in. Can you speak to that dude? Burn it all down. Absolutely burn down our politicians. Do it. Do it. This is not meant to be a a public interview. It was a long time friend of mine who I stupidly uh forgot was also a reporter. uh I thought I was speaking in a personal capacity. um I I'm not sure what they thought the capacity was at the time, but it certainly ended up uh, being reported on. um and you know I think what I'd say is look, um I there are a lot of things I think have really massive impact on the world and ultimately that's what I care about the most and I mean I think that I think frankly, that that you know the blockchain industry could you know could have substantial positive impact. but you know I I was thinking a lot about you know bed nets and Larry about you know, saving people from diseases no one should die from. um, about animals or about pandemic prevention. And you know what could be done on large scale to help mitigate those those things I think matter and and and they're You know, among the most important things to me. Um, separately from that, there's a bunch of that regulated companies do, um, to try and look good. and um, these are things that everyone who does them basically knows they're kind of dumb that these are not things that are making large impact on the world. These are not looking at saving thousands of lives. You know these are the kind of like, uh, you know, if uh, if like, three different quarterbacks throw a touchdown in the same game for the same team, we'll donate two used cars to charity, uh, type campaigns where it's not going to happen. It's never happened, There's no expectation of a car getting donated, it's just a PR campaign sort of masquerading as um, as do gooderism. And you know things like green washing are are things which I think end up in individually similar area. Fair to say you participated in this. Yeah, we all did and and I I I and you know FTX did as well. And there are things I felt like we needed to do for the business. There are things that I felt like were were crucial for us being able. I mean I I wish the world didn't work this way I wish that these weren't relevant to your ability to get regulated to your ability to um, uh, get bank accounts. but they they were and uh, yeah, you know we had promotional campaigns, we had um, you know, marking slogans and uh, and you know we thought about what we could do to and you know, we thought of ourselves as legitimately trying to do good, but we also thought about what we could do uh to, uh, make sure that our image, um, reflected that and um, there's a lot of a lot of just unimpactful things there that ultimately I I think in some circles got more attention than actually impactful things. Um, and you know I I think that on the more tasteful end of the spectrum you can see you know things like, uh, small scale but real charitable initiatives? um and on I think the less tasteful end of the spectrum. you know Frankly Speaking I mean I think even things like you know, making sure that um, all materials have perfect English grammar is a thing where I that was important Sam Let me ask you about this though because the other piece of it is um, using using your your money and influence and I think there's a question about whose money you were using uh, but to donate for example, to the Democratic party um, in large part to influence regulation and I think as people have looked through now, some of the regulation you were pushing for at Cepheus for example, some of that regulation would have allowed you frankly to quote, self-certify a lot of what was going on at FTX and there are people who look at that and say it was all part of a scheme. So I'm unpacking pieces of that when you look at like this. the Cftc regulation there. Um. Ultimately, there may have been an ability to self-certify contracts, but prior to that, we went through a congressional hearing a uh, um, a public comment period. A public Roundtable a year of inquiries and tens of thousands of hours. Um, you know, thousands of pages of submitted documents. Um, and still had not uh, gotten to the point of having a license to offer Merchant Futures in the United States And so it was an extraordinarily long and hard process that we were going through with the Cftc. Um. and I You know it was by far the most intensive regulatory processed. Can you speak to the lobbying piece of it though? Yeah, and the donations? Piece of it. Because I think that's that's become part of this story as to whether you effectively were influencing lawmakers to do your bidding. Oh yeah, it was given the state of your current company questions about whether that should be the case. So I mean lawmakers were not ruling on FTS FTX didn't have an application before Congress for anything. Um, you know my donations were I mostly for pandemic prevention and they were looking at primary elections where there were candidates who were outspoken in favor of doing things now to prevent the next pandemic. That was the primary thing that I was supporting Uh with those contributions. And you know it was on both sides of of the aisle, primarily operating in both primaries because it wasn't I wasn't viewing it as a partisan exercise. there is not, you know. Moses was not looking at donating to one party to beat the other one in the general elections here. Um, I You know it was. Not only was it on both sides, but even within each side, it was between two candidates in the same party. And and it was looking at pandemic policies. Where did the money come from for those donations? So I you know, basically, uh, profits I mean uh, You know it was uh, substantially smaller than the you know amount of trading profits that Alami had made uh over the prior a few years um related uh to this. uh, you had a meeting. whoa, brother. all here going on for about? did they murk it? we've been listening to Andrew Ross Orkin's exclusive one-on-one interview with former. FTX CEO Sam Bankman freed. A little bit of technical difficulty. The interview is continuing, so we'll see if we can get that back up. Meantime: I didn't knowingly I think Media Matters right when we talk about politics, that's sucks and I just that is. yeah, there's there's so much inconsistency. whether you were trying to buy influence, can you speak to that? I mean I think Media Matters a lot and I want to support good Media Ventures that was the whole thesis there. and uh, you know I don't have like governance over any of these I wasn't looking for governance over them. um I I was looking to support journalists doing great work because I think what they do is really important and I think that there needs to be a critical eye. um on stories. um uh, I'm certainly seeing. You know being on the the, uh, uh, on the getting the brunt of a lot of that right now and um, you know, frankly, I think it's healthy. um for the world that there is real investigative journalism. um, your parents are law professors. what did you tell them when all of this happened? uh I mean I don't remember exactly when I reached out to them, but you know I think I I called them up and said hey guys I think there might be a problem like things um I looks like Halloween's position might be, uh, imploding here and uh, there might be liquid issues and I'll tell you more when I know more that that is. That's my guess about roughly roughly what I said. but honestly, that that week so much happened, it's a little bit of a blur to me. exactly what? What are they telling you now and look, it's been. it's been a hard period for anyone who was close to me and and none of them deserved that. and I feel really? I mean look like a lot of obviously the the largest number of people who are hurt here were were customers and I feel incredibly bad about that. Um, but uh, anyone who is close to me you know, including my parents, including employees, co-workers who who you know fought with the company to to push forward were hurt by this and or no responsibility for that. um I feel really bad about that and I mean I feel really grateful for the support my parents are still giving me. You know, throughout all of this, can you explain the real estate piece of this to us? I Think there's been a number of headlines as you know about FTX the company buying a lot of real estate up in the Bahamas um, where you lived at least at the time was owned by the company. but then there's also reports uh, that your parents signed and were effectively provided with what seemed like a vacation home. So uh, I don't know the details of the that house um for for my parents but I knew that it was not intended to be their long-term property I always intend to be the company's property I I don't know how that was papered and I and I think that was where it was was and will end up um I I think they may have stayed there while working Uh, you know with the company, uh, sometime over the last year When you look at the rest of it, um, there were a lot of property purchases in the Bahamas Uh, you know the reason for that is we had, you know, a hundred, uh, you know, basically 100 Silicon Valley Uh, you know top Silicon Valley Employees come down here to work for FTS and um, you know we were trying to, uh, incentivize That Into You Know make sure that they had an easy way to find a comfortable life um, so that they'd be willing to move and um, and help build out the product. and so I you know those hundred people uh, put together here did end up you know, uh, buying a substantial uh amount of property and I feel kind of I feel bad about some of uh, how those Investments may turn out for them? Can you just speak to the idea of this company That at least from the public perspective, seemed like a um regulated company or something that was, uh, very focused on compliance you would go to Washington You'd talk about compliance. You talk about trust. Crypto ultimately is actually about trust. It's about not having to trust others. Frankly, it's supposed to be a trust list system. That's why you trust. ever trusted so much supposedly. Um, yeah, but but it seems like when you read the stories, it sounds like a a bunch of kids uh who were on Adderall having a sleepover party um I mean look I screwed up like I'm a CEO I I was the CEO of FTX and I mean I didn't say this again and again that that means I had a responsibility. That means that I was responsible, ultimately frustrated things and I mean I We didn't like. There were people though who were telling you you needed more compliance. No, there were. But I I think that compliance. Um, we were spending an enormous amount of our energy on compliance. We were spending an enormous amount of energy on regulation on licensure. Um, we're getting licensed in dozens of jurisdictions. Um, uh I think Frankly, we're spending probably too much of our energy getting licensed. In retrospect. Um, and uh, you know there were some places where I think that the reporting and transparency obligations from that licensure actually did help I think when you look at I mean FTX U.S derivatives I think when you look at FTX Japan which I think is fully solvent which I think could make all customers whole tomorrow if it were. um, uh, you know the sort of uh, relevantages were to allow it to um I am confused why it hasn't Um, but um I But you know I think that a lot of. what we ended up doing and focusing on was a distraction to some extent from one unbelievably important area that we completely failed on. And that was risk. That was risk management. that was, you know, customer position risk. Um, uh, and you know, frankly, conflict of interest risk. and um, you know there there was no person who was chiefly in charge of positional risk of customers on FTX And that feels pretty embarrassing in retrospect, because that was you. You go back to 2019, even 2018 Asked me why am I starting to build out FTX what's the point of it And what I would have said was, look, the existing crypto derivatives exchanges have large risk management failures that every day there are millions of dollars that are being lost by customers because of risk management failures, that these contracts are paying out 75 cents on the dollar week after week after week because of risk management blowouts, and that that needs to be overhauled. And that was what I was focused on. Um for the beginning of FTX I was not focused on that for the last year or two I got less grounded from that and I started focusing on the bigger picture on um, you know, future business Avenues on on licensure on on a lot of things and I mean we we lost track of a really important part of the business and of the product. Um, and so they're absolutely more management failures. Huge management failures I bear responsibility for that. There were oversight failures, transparency failures, reporting like so many things we should have had in place I Think that a lot of it was on the risk management side. Let me ask you about that, which is We had Larry Fink here today and he had a stake in FTX Um, and Sequoia and Paradigm and some very big Venture Capital Firms had had given you money and I'm curious if they ever asked you questions about this risk management and whether they bear any responsibility for what Clearly Now appears that you're saying was at minimum a lack of oversight if not something much worse. Um, I Don't think they bear responsibility I mean like when you look at you put your size, you put yourself in the eyes of an investor of a venture capital firm. Um, what you're thinking about primarily is upside, right? What you're thinking about primarily is investing in a private company and thinking, might this 3x might this 5x might this even 10x on the upside cases. And yeah, there's some chance that it will go down. There's some chance that maybe it will go down to zero. Um, but that's counterbalanced by the upside propositions here. And and so most of what they were focused on was, you know I I Think like, what might FTX become What's the pathway to get from here to there? You know what would it take? What are the missing pieces? Um, you know, rather than you know at the point where you're dwelling on all of the various precise downside scenarios and risks for a prospective Venture investment, That means you're not investing. Like if that's where your head's at, you know, if you think the odds are that that's where things are going to end up. Why why would you do that investment? Can I ask you about the drugs? um, you? You have tweeted about it Caroline has tweeted about others have tweeted about uppers and downers um, and all sorts of things. There have been pictures taken of something called Msam uh which apparently increases levels of doping to the brain. it's actually for Parkinson's were you taking that as a patch? So I I it's it's funny hearing this. I I Had my first sip of alcohol after my 21st birthday and I think I I have maybe half a glass of uh of alcohol a year. Roughly speaking, there were no wild parties here. When we have artists play board games and you know 20 of people would have three quarters of a beer each or something like that. Um, and you know the rest of us would would not drink anything I See, you know any legal drug use around me. You know at the office at these parties like and and NYC prize area I mean like you know having people over for dinner is what that meant um uh and look I can't talk about anyone else like you know what they're prescribed between themselves and their their doctors, their psychiatrists. um I can say for me um I don't know like I uh I've been prescribed various things at various times to help with focus and concentration. um I and I think they have done that I haven't felt any of um, you know the sort of impact that I think people have been theorizing here from it and it's not a huge impact a you know in the first place. Anyway, I think you know these have all just been totally on uh on label use of uh of medications and um, you know I think things that on the margin helped me focus a little bit. um I wish I had been a lot more focused over the last year. um I may have been unfocused in this last moment because I actually wanted to follow up on the question when we're talking about Venture capitalists um Sequoia and Paradigm invested in you but there have now been questions about the fact that you invested in them and whether these were what some people described in the business round-trip deals. Can you speak to that? I I mean I think well after they had invested um in FTX I I Don't know the details but I think um, there may have been a small investment um into some of their funds I think you know with something that we did because I don't believe in what they were doing. It seemed like a a good opportunity and um, didn't think too much about it I'm curious, just on a very perso