Former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has signaled that he’s unwilling to testify before the United States Congress until he’s “finished learning and reviewing what happened.” This recent news has opened up a lot of opinions from crypto community members.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the now-insolvent cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has said that he will wait to appear before Congress until he has “finished learning and reviewing what happened.”
SBF has had many public appearances during the last week, but it seems doubtful that he would give a testimony before the US House Committee on Financial Services hearing on December 13.
Bankman-Fried was replying to a tweet issued by Maxine Waters on December 2 requesting him to appear before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services at a hearing set for December 13 to address “what transpired” at FTX.
The Crypto Community Calls for Justice
The crypto community was not pleased with Bankman Fried’s refusal to appear before the Congress on December 13 despite a blitz of media appearances. In the second week of November, the FTX and its sibling firms spiraled into bankruptcy. On November 30, Bankman-Fried made his first live public appearance at the DealBook Summit hosted by the New York Times. A day later, IBC Group CEO and founder Mario Nawfal hosted him on Twitter and in an interview with Good Morning America.
In response to Bankman-unwillingness to testify in the face of media attention, novelist Alex Berenson took a diss at the situation by joking that the former CEO is “glad to chat to anybody and everyone… just as long as he’s not under oath.”
Some members of the community including Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, noted that the reaction seemed inconsistent with his recent actions, which included participating in numerous media interviews and tweeting nonstop about the factors that contributed to FTX’s collapse in November.
Jake Chervinsky, the head of policy for the Blockchain Association and an assistant U.S. attorney, suggested that Bankman-Fried was hesitant to participate in the hearing on December 13 because “lying to Congress on oath is less appealing.”
Another user brought up the former CEO’s substantial contributions to the democratic party, suggesting that these contributions gave him the leverage to get away with stealing people’s money while letting Congress know when he would testify.
Many in the crypto community have questioned the lawmakers in the U.S. over their failure to act swiftly against the disgraced CEO. Others have pointed toward Bankman-Fried’s hefty donations to Democrats and his political affiliations.
