Bankman-Fried claims: ‘I unknowingly commingled funds’ at DealBook Summit

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has claimed to have “unknowingly commingled funds” between Alameda and customer funds at FTX.

Bankman-Fried was speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook Summit via video conference on Nov. 30, in which journalist Andrew Sorkin noted “there appears to be a genuine commingling of the funds that are FTX customers that were not supposed to be commingled with your separate firm.”

Bankman-Fried denied knowing about the commingled funds and blamed it on poor oversight.

“I unknowingly commingled funds […] I was frankly surprised by how big Alameda’s position was which points to another failure of oversight on my part and failure to appoint someone to be chiefly in charge of that,” said Bankman-Fried, adding:

“But I wasn’t trying to comingle funds.”

Bankman-Fried also appeared to deflect blame for the actions of Alameda.

“I wasn’t running Alameda, I didn’t know exactly what [was] going on. I didn’t know the size of their position.”

The crypto exchange famously imploded in early November as a result of a liquidity crisis, leading to a halting of customer withdrawals. It filed for bankruptcy days later on Nov. 11. 

It is alleged that much of the liquidity crisis was due to Alameda using client funds to cover a loans that were being recalled due to the credit crunch caused by the collapse of LUNA. 

This is a developing story and more information will be added as it becomes available.