Following the collapse of FTX, former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has said that he is “willing to testify” in a hearing before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee.
Key Details
- The U.S. House Financial Services Committee is set to hold a hearing about FTX on December 13.
- Former FTX CEO Bankman-Fried is currently under criminal and civil investigations for the role that he played in the collapse of the trading company.
- SBF says through Twitter that he would be “willing to testify” before the committee, though he says his information would be limited because he has little access to his “professional or personal” data.
- Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) tweeted to the former CEO earlier this month, asking him to appear at the committee hearing.
- SBF has missed a previously set deadline to respond to the committee’s request for an appearance.
Why it’s news
SBF is under investigation for the role he played in FTX’s collapse—though he has not been charged with any crimes. He has denied any attempts to commit fraud, but he admits that he made several errors as manager of FTX.
After the company’s bankruptcy and ensuing chaos that came from its collapse, the Financial Services Committee announced that it would be investigating the cause of such a massive market disruption and its disastrous effect on the cryptocurrency market.
The crypto trading company’s bankruptcy in early November left nearly 1 million customers and investors facing potentially billions of dollars in losses. Digital assets such as bitcoin dropped after the announcement.
When the committee announced its hearing, it stated that it planned to hear from SBF, Alameda Research, Binance, FTX, and others. However, SBF did not respond to the committee’s request by the deadline.
After his tweet that seemingly confirmed his appearance, Bankman-Fried’s spokesman says that nothing had been finalized and “details are still being worked out.”
“The fall of FTX has posed tremendous harm to over one million users, many of whom were everyday people who invested their hard-earned savings into the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds,” Rep. Waters says.