Sam Bankman-Fried: 'I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away.'

The former FTX leader denied any involvement In regards to the allegations Alameda had used FTX customer funds, and said he was pressured into naming John Ray as CEO.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has largely denied the allegations against him in a ‘pre-mortem overview’ of the crypto exchange’s insolvency.

In a Jan. 12 post on Substack, Bankman-Fried — differentiating between companies under the FTX umbrella — claimed FTX US had been “fully solvent” at the time the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with roughly $350 million in cash on hand. He pointed to Sullivan & Crowell and the FTX US general counsel as parties who pressured him into naming John Ray as the CEO of FTX prior to the firm’s bankruptcy, seemingly disrupting a path toward making affected users “substantially whole.”

“Even now, I believe that if FTX International were to reboot, there would be a real possibility of customers being made substantially whole,” said Bankman-Fried.

In regards to the allegations Alameda had used user funds from FTX, Bankman-Fried denied any involvement:

“I didn’t steal funds, and I certainly didn’t stash billions away. Nearly all of my assets were and still are utilizable to backstop FTX customers. I have, for instance, offered to contribute nearly all of my personal shares in Robinhood to customers–or 100%, if the Chapter 11 team would honor my D&O legal expense indemnification.”