The Absentee CEO: Where’s SBF?
Sam Bankman-Fried may have managed to leap hurdles on his crypto kingdom, but when it came to the congressional hearing, he couldn’t even manage a virtual appearance. His recent arrest in the Bahamas had lawmakers seething and prepared to lay out their grievances against the former FTX titan and his questionable business practices. Talk about a bad day to miss work!
John Ray Takes the Stand
Enter John Ray, the new captain of the FTX ship scrambled from the wreck. As the only witness at the U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing on December 13, Ray unveiled the tangled web spun by FTX and Alameda Research. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t pretty. Without any semblance of internal controls or distinction between the two firms, Ray asserted that the firm’s operations resembled more of a game of Monopoly than a billion-dollar business.
Bookkeeping? What’s That?
If you thought keeping records was a mundane requirement, FTX proved otherwise. According to Ray, they didn’t just drop the ball; they rolled it right into a black hole. Invoices and expense receipts were carelessly tossed around on Slack like they were last week’s memes. And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, Ray shared that FTX was using Quickbooks to manage their financials. For a billion-dollar company? Yikes! It’s like using a fork to eat soup!
The Blame Game: Willful Actions vs. Incompetence
With sparks flying, Representatives asked Ray whether Bankman-Fried’s actions stemmed from brazen malice or pure cluelessness. Missouri’s Rep. Ann Wagner contrasted SBF’s public “apology tour” with Ray’s skepticism, declaring, “I don’t find any such statements to be credible.” Meanwhile, Texas Representative Al Green pondered if Bankman-Fried was just a victim of misguided intelligence—a little Martin Luther King Jr. reference didn’t make things any clearer either.
Crypto’s Shameful Kessler Effect
In the wake of allegations aplenty, lawmakers expressed their disdain, recounting moments from previous hearings that left their jaws on the floor. Missouri Rep. Emanuel Cleaver did not hold back, calling SBF’s leaked profanity-laden opening statement “absolutely insulting.” In a hilarious twist, he even floated the idea of rebranding cryptocurrency as “creepy dough currency.” Now, that would certainly catch some eyebrows—and maybe a few investment dollars!
The Ongoing Fallout
With the Senate Banking Committee set to hold an additional hearing featuring various notable witnesses, including Hollywood’s own Ben McKenzie, it seems SBF’s saga is far from over. And while lawmakers gear up for another round of high-stakes drama, they appear committed to getting to the bottom of FTX’s catastrophic collapse. Never a dull moment in crypto, that’s for sure!
