It should be noted that the special treatment of FTX users from the Bahamas was known to all. In this regard, some traders preliminarily used fake documents to confirm their belonging to this region and even tried to bribe exchange employees. And while prominent members of the blockchain community ended up reducing this to a joke on Twitter, some of them did seem to manage to get the crypto stuck on the exchange.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried

At the time, cryptocurrency enthusiasts suggested that by doing so the exchange management did not want to face additional problems from the authorities in their country of incorporation. Now bankrupt exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried has commented on the issue.

What happened to the FTX exchange?

It turns out that its founder Sam Bankman-Fried allowed withdrawals for Bahamians specifically to “not be in the same place as a huge number of angry people”. He admitted this in a phone conversation with cryptoblogger Tiffany Fong. Meanwhile, the Attorney General of The Bahamas has previously said that the collapse of FTX has caused serious damage to the country’s reputation.

The interview with Fong was recorded during a phone call to Bankman-Fried – an excerpt from it can be found on the blogger’s YouTube channel as evidence.

Here’s a translation of Sam’s quote about opening the withdrawals.

The reason I did this is because it was very important for the future of the exchange. It is in the Bahamas that I am in now, you don’t want to end up in a country where there are a lot of evil people. You wouldn’t want to work in a company surrounded by hostile people.

Note that cryptocurrency enthusiasts from other regions also visited the Bahamas with a hunt for Sam. A similar event took place this weekend, but they were never able to get their hands on the former FTX executive.

Bankman-Fried claims that he gave Bahamian regulators “one day’s notice” that FTX was going to open withdrawals, but they responded with neither yes nor no, before the country’s users were eventually able to access their coins. In an interview, Sam admitted that such a decision was unfair to everyone else with a hint of concern for his own safety. He continues.

So it was crap, but FTX’s way was not to piss off Bahamians.

Ex-CEO and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

According to Cointelegraph sources, the former FTX CEO was also close to figuring out the identity of the hacker who “under the radar” stole over $450 million worth of exchange assets almost immediately after the bankruptcy announcement.

I don’t know exactly who it was, as halfway through finding out I lost access to the exchange’s systems. I have narrowed the suspects down to eight people. I don’t know who any of them are, but I have a feeling about them.

In the same interview, Bankman-Fried said he believed it was “either a former employee or someone installed malware on a former employee’s computer”. As a reminder, there were also earlier suspicions in the community that there was no hacking attack – the money was allegedly taken out by Sam himself in an attempt to escape from justice.

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Since the launch of FTX in 2019, Bunkman-Fried has openly supported Democratic candidates in domestic political games in the US. In 2020, Sam was one of the biggest donors to current President Joe Biden’s campaign, contributing $5.2 million from FTX US and $6.2 million from Alameda Research.

In an interview with Fong, he made another admission: it turns out the former FTX CEO also supported Republicans, albeit covertly. The remark is quoted by Decrypt.

I donated to both parties. I donated about the same amount to both parties. All my donations to Republicans have been “shady”. In practice, no one can imagine anyone actually giving “dark” money.

Dark money financing scheme – transactions do not go directly, but through front companies

According to Open Secrets, a resource that tracks political financing, "dark money" is expenditures for influence and political results whose source is not disclosed.

Bankman-Fried said he donated “dark money” to avoid public scrutiny and to keep reporters “from freaking out” upon learning that a well-known crypto-industry selebrity was financially supporting unpopular political candidates.

FTX founder Sam Bunkman-Fried

We think Sam Bunkman-Fried gets too many platforms to speak out given his actions. Still, his interactions with users' money have resulted in the loss of billions of dollars of innocent people who are unlikely to reach their funds anytime soon. So many crypto investors would clearly want to see Sam at court hearings rather than various conferences.

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