Now, Bankman-Fried – often referred to as SBF – has apologized on Twitter and continues to ask for financial support. “Fucked,” he said in the first tweet of a lengthy 22-part thread. In the post he acknowledged that he “should have done better” and outlined a series of mistakes he claims he made, including underestimating FTX users’ profit margins, overestimating cash availability and a lack of transparency. G/O Media may receive a commission lightsaber hum SabersPro For the Star Wars fan with everything. These lightsabers are powered by Neopixels, LED strips running inside the shape of the blade that allow for adjustable colors, interactive sounds, and changing motion effects while dueling. “Right now, my #1 priority—by far—is doing right by users,” he claimed. “We’re spending the week doing everything we can to increase liquidity,” Bankman-Fried continued. FTX’s liquidity crisis means that many users who had funds tied up in the exchange were unable to get their money back. So it seems that the first priority of the exchange is to solve this problem. To do this, SBF continues its push to attract big wigs on Wall Street, blockchain and venture capital to contribute bailout funds. “There are quite a few players we are talking to, LOIs, term sheets etc. We will see how it pans out,” the CEO tweeted. Some of the entities FTX is reportedly in talks with are stablecoin platform Tether, crypto exchange OKC and cryptocurrency founder Justin Sun, according to Reuters. In the internal memo cited by the agency, Bankman-Fried wrote that he did not want “to imply anything about the chances of success.” Just a few weeks ago, FTX was the third largest cryptocurrency exchange. But a series of mistakes made months ago finally caught up with the company. In addition to FTX, Bankman-Fried is also the CEO of Alameda Research, a trading firm deeply intertwined with the stock market. SBF allegedly used money from customer deposits in FTX to prop up Alameda as that firm lost money in the ongoing “crypto winter.” There have been reports of shady dealings and lack of liquidity. Then on Sunday, an ongoing feud between SBF and Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao culminated with CZ’s exchange selling a large chunk of FTT, causing the value to drop and the FTX crisis to begin. Briefly on Tuesday and Wednesday, it looked like Binance might go from FTX competitor to white knight, but the merger between the two exchanges fell through, which CZ blamed on the sorry state of FTX’s financial records. Currently, Alameda is “closing transactions,” according to Bankman-Fried. The value of FTT has fallen from over $59 this time last year to less than $4 today. And FTX’s decline has reverberated beyond the single exchange. On Wednesday, almost every cryptocurrency was in a bearish trend. Although some have made modest recoveries today, Bitcoin is still hovering around a 2-year low.
