Takeaway's from SBF's Dealbook Interview

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Catch up on the past week in crypto in 10 mins or less. Here's what we're covering today:

• SBF's press tour 🎥

• More from around the web 🗞️

SBF SPEAKS

The ex-CEO and Founder of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried ("SBF") has been unusually public since the collapse of FTX earlier this month, posting a series of odd tweets and now speaking publicly to the press from his penthouse in the Bahamas.

Earlier this week, two audio interviews with SBF on November 16th by Tiffany Fong were released on her Youtube channel. Then yesterday, SBF spoke at the New York Times' Dealbook summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin.

The Dealbook interview lasted 70 minutes. Aside from the creepy smile above and plenty of nervous shaking, SBF provided some interesting tidbits against his lawyer's wishes. While much of the interview was filled with non-answers, here's the things we found the most interesting:

• Even though FTX US has filed for bankruptcy, SBF still says the US entity is solvent and customers could be made whole today. He has since doubled-down on this take on Twitter. Whether this is true or not is completely beyond us, but he does have a history of lying and the fact that there are 130+ entities under FTX and an admitted severe lack of oversight, we find it hard to believe.

• He said that because Alameda Research (his hedge fund) traded on FTX, it was allowed to use other customer's deposit for margin trading*. This obviously went against the Terms of Service of FTX, but what's more is that all customer deposits were coming through Alameda's bank accounts because FTX did not have accounts set up.

• He blamed dashboards he regularly looked at that underrepresented the size of Alameda's margin position on FTX, and that he did not know how big Alameda's position on FTX was.

• Even after all of that he claimed that he did not "knowingly commingle funds" between customers and Alameda. Decrypt and Nansen claim otherwise, showing on-chain data about the relationship between the two entities.

• Says he is not focused on potential criminal proceedings, and that he is just focused on trying to help do what he can to make customers whole.

The press tour is not finished yet, either. SBF appeared on Good Morning America this morning with George Stephanopoulos in a 10 minute interview in person at SBF's Bahamas residence. The interview reiterated much of what was said yesterday at the Dealbook Summit with one memorable quote being that a lot of this happened because of "distraction".

So, was all of this just incompetence or known, organized fraud? It's possible that SBF is telling the truth but he does not have a good track record of truth telling. Another question some are asking is "why are we seeing all of this?" Could this be a strategy by SBF to claim incompetence? Or is the media coordinating to protect SBF?

What do you think? Reply to this email or hit us in the DMs on Twitter to give your take on the most recent updates from the SBF saga, and what you think the outcome should be.

More from around the web(3)

Apple Forces Coinbase to Disable NFT Transfers on Its Wallet App - The latest Coinbase Wallet App release was also blocked by Apple as the tech giant is enforcing its 30% in-app transaction fee on Coinbase's NFT transfers. Coinbase says they would not be able to comply even if they tried because Apple's payment system does not support crypto.

Rising Tether Loans Add Risk to Stablecoin, Crypto World - The stablecoin issuer behind USDT, Tether, has been issuing loans out to "eligible" customers in their native token. The growing number of loans is worrying investors that Tether would not be able to fulfill redemptions if they wanted to trade in their USDT for cash. 

Crypto lender BlockFi files for bankruptcy, cites FTX exposure - The company said that the substantial amount of assets it had on FTX created a liquidity crises.

Russia intends to launch a ‘national crypto exchange’ - The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Russia are coordinating to amend the country's existing crypto legislation and create a national exchange.

Solana’s Top NFT Project Founder Frank DeGods Just Doxxed! - The DeGods project has grown in popularity over the last year as the founder has remained anonymous. Earlier this week, the founder revealed his identity as Rohun Vora, a startup founder and UCLA dropout.

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