Recall that the collapse of the FTX and Alameda "crypto empire" was preceded by a lengthy period during which the management of both companies were negligent in their duties. What's more, the FTX bankruptcy case has revealed that the company was actively using customer funds, with Bankman-Fried being aware of what was going on. Yet he himself continues to deny guilt on the eight charges against him.

And it’s funny as more and more evidence is emerging in the FTX case that is not in Sam’s favour. This is apparently due in part to the cooperation of Bankman-Fried’s former colleagues Alameda Research boss Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Vaughan.

For example, sources tonight published a curious piece of FTX exchange code that confirmed previous reports that Alameda Research’s trading positions on FTX had not been liquidated. In this case the Liquidating field is listed as “False”, i.e. “False”.

Features of Alameda Research’s trading position on the FTX crypto exchange

Also of interest is the $65 billion negative balance sheet limit for Alameda. This is essentially artificial collateral for margin positions, allowing them to be opened without any real collateral. Naturally, this state of affairs can hardly be called fair to other users. And that means Sam Bankman-Friede’s problems with his lawsuit are likely to become much bigger.

Who is to blame for the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange?

In an interview with Cointelegraph journalists, Scaramucci said he felt “betrayed” after the FTX collapse. Here is his quote in which the entrepreneur shares his attitude towards what happened.

I have to tell you, betrayal and fraud are bad in any context. What has happened has damaged my reputation, but it is the relationship of trust that I am referring to.

Skybridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci

Anthony is not stingy with epithets for Sam, who seems to have been on good friendly terms with Scaramucci until recently. He continues.

If anyone here has read Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, you know what the ninth circle of hell is reserved for. For betraying a friend the sinner lives with the devil on the frozen lake of the ninth circle of hell.

Ex-CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried

Scaramucci had high hopes for Bankman-Fried – according to him, he even considered Sam “the second Mark Zuckerberg”.

I’m a high-profile person, so my mistakes are wildly exaggerated, that’s perfectly normal, but I’m not going to give up the risk. I thought Sam was the Mark Zuckerberg of cryptocurrency, I didn’t think he could be the Bernie Madoff of the cryptosphere.

Sam on the covers of Fortune and Forbes magazines

It’s not surprising, and many were of the same opinion too: after all, Sam was consistently ranked as a young billionaire and became the “discovery of the year” in big business circles. But after the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried’s biography did indeed bear a strong resemblance to the life story of Bernie Madoff. Recall that Madoff was also once considered a talented man until his pyramid scheme collapsed amid the global financial crisis in 2008.

Read also: Galaxy Digital executive dreams of hitting the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Why?

The founder of Skybridge Capital went beyond the negativity towards the former FTX executive. Scaramucci also spoke about his progress in building his own digital asset portfolio.

I started investing in Bitcoin in 2020. Then we started buying Etherium in early 2021. We have some Solana, we have something called Algorand, which is a smaller scale project, but it has very good technology.

Most interestingly, back in 2013 Scaramucci stated on Twitter that he didn’t think Bitcoin was a concept worth even a cursory examination at all. Apparently, the cryptocurrency’s rise in value by thousands of percent since then has forced the financier to change his mind.

Scaramucci’s tweet, published in 2013, in which he states that Bitcoin is not worth his attention

In his WEF interview, Anthony admitted that he had made many mistakes during his career as a crypto investor. It took him many years and exposure to leaders in the field like the Winklevoss twins before he started investing in crypto in a big way. He also noted that “scepticism is usually born from a lack of knowledge.

The more homework you do on blockchain, the more you realise that blockchain will be a very big part of our future.


Note that a similar viewpoint will also be voiced the day before by Trezor CEO Matej Jacques. He believes that once all the benefits of Bitcoin and the fundamental features of the technology at its core are realised, the price of the crypto-asset will take a back seat.


A cryptocurrency investor with a hardware wallet


We believe that much of the credibility of Sam Bankman-Fried has been helped by his image. After all, social media portrayed him as a kindly billionaire genius who wants to help the world with donations, sleeps in a pile driver's chair and drives a Toyota. In practice, however, FTX was used to fund the trading company Alameda, whose representatives lent money to users of the trading platform. So the disappointment in Sam's personality on such a scale is generally not surprising.


I wish as many billionaires and officials as possible would follow Scaramucci’s path – to thoughtfully study the industry, appreciate its benefits and help it grow. What do you think about this? Share your opinion in our Millionaire Crypto Chat.