SBF's final interview before his arrest: The truth and the rumors

原文标题：《 在 SBF 被逮捕前，我们和他聊了一下 》

Source: Deep Tide TechFlow

On December 13th SamBankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, was formally arrested by police in the Bahamas.

According to an official statement from the Bahamas, the United States Justice Department has formally filed criminal charges against SBF, and the Bahamian police arrested SBF after being formally notified by the United States and will extradite him as requested. A tweet from the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York also confirmed this and said that an indictment was imminent. FTX founder SBF was charged with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy and money laundering, The New York Times reported, citing sources.

In the past, SBF has given interviews to various media outlets and frequented various Twitter Spaces, leaving many people wondering,Why does SBF seem to be unscathed after FTX crash?

The dust gradually settled.

Deeptide TechFlow interviewed SBF via video just days before his arrest. That day, SBF seemed to be in good spirits and smiled many times for the first time. Over the course of the interview, he stressed his remorse, repeated phrases like "I screwed up," made it clear that he wanted to "actively solve clients' problems." But he also took aim at CZ and the current CEO and team at FTX, which is overseeing the liquidation.In his opinion, CZ was the one who pulled the trigger, causing the FTX to explode.

It is worth mentioning that SBF admitted in the interview that he wasted a lot of energy on the media and brand building of FTX in the past, instead of focusing on product optimization and risk management, which now seems to have caused a lot of problems.

At the end of the interview, we asked him, What is your biggest regret?

He said,"I regret the time since the incident that I should not have disappeared from the media. I could have done more."

Truth or rumor?

Deep Tide TechFlow: From FTSince the bankruptcy of X, Three Arrow Capital has frequently launched accusations against Alameda, claiming that Three Arrow Capital was hunted by Alameda Group in the incident of LUNA's collapse, which eventually resulted in Three Arrow Capital losing all its LP and creditors' funds. In addition, The New York Times also reported that, The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan has opened an investigation into whether Alameda was behind LUNA's collapse. How do you respond to these allegations? Did Alameda hunt LUNA and Three Arrows Capital?

SBF:Absolutely not. While many things have gone wrong this year, and I regret it, as they led directly to FTX's demise, and I am extremely sad, not all of them are due to this.

We had nothing to do with the collapse of Three Arrow Capital, Terra had nothing to do with us, and in some ways Three Arrow Capital and Alameda had a similar experience. Leveraged long positions, declining market values, and ultimately liquidated, I sympathize and feel sorry for what they went through, and for everyone who has been hurt by falling markets this year, but I cannot identify with their scaremongering and attempts to blame others for their problems.

I thought they were smart people, and I really couldn't believe that they really believed Alameda had anything to do with their positions. The market collapsed, that's pretty straightforward, but it had nothing to do with the action I took, nothing to do with Alameda, who from my perspective were just looking for a scapegoat and wanted to find someone else to take responsibility for their problems.

Deep Tide TechFlow: In the wake of the FTX incident, you continued to insist that you did not have detailed knowledge of Alameda's financial situation, which led to the mixing of funds without knowing about it. However, Forbes reported that you compiled five asset lists in two years and that your understanding of Alameda's financial situation was in the single digits. What do you think of the report?

SBF: The document I sent to Forbes was in response to inquiries about my Holdings. I sent them a Summary (summary) about my Holding and Alameda's Holding, which gave me part of the information, and I also knew some information about Alameda's Token Holdings, but I was not fully involved.

I just looked at Alameda's open margin positions, but I didn't get the details of all the positions. As a result, I didn't have any detailed knowledge of Alameda, including the actual total net worth, etc. I just knew what some of their assets were, until the recent accident.

Deeptide TechFlow: So you just know the specific data, but don't know why?

SBF: I only know part of it. Let's say I know where Alameda's biggest assets are, but I don't know what their liabilities are. I know what borrowings or loans, or their positions in FTX, major token holdings, and I expect to know more, but obviously that's not the case.

Deeptide Tech Flow: Recently, the Financial Times (FT) revealed the details of nearly 500 investments that Alameda and FTX Ventures have made, with a total value of more than $5bn. Where did the money come from? In retrospect, were some of the investments made too hastily?

SBF: Making such an investment is definitely a mistake. While I think many of these investments were sound in their own right, Alameda's investment was so large, probably ending up in the billions of dollars, that it was partly responsible for its long position and lack of liquidity for so long, and I definitely wish Alameda hadn't made investments that large.

Media and self

Deeptide TechFlow: There is a lot of frustration on Twitter that you have "bribed" the Wall Street Journal/Bloomberg and other media outlets who seem to downplay the harm and nature of FTX's bankruptcy. What is FTX's media strategy?

SBF: The media strategy depends on whether it's before or after. If you go back to the month before the crash, obviously, I had a lot of contact with the media. I talk to the media quite actively, and my goal is to be as helpful as I can, to keep people informed about what's going on in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, to try to help inform legislators and others.

But a lot of what I said became fodder for the backlash. I did the same thing when the FTX crashed last month. I talked to journalists, said what I thought, and tried to be helpful, but they would think I had something to do with the crash. From then on, I entered a period where I didn't really talk to the press. I regret doing this because the reporting of that period was a bit out of touch with reality. Obviously, I messed up a lot, which is absolutely true, and the press has a right to write about it, but there were a lot of conspiracy theories that started floating around, and they weren't true. And that narrative has prevailed, including the Luna and Three Arrow Capital debacles... This has nothing to do with me, but it's always in the media.

* Background: The Financial Times recently revealed Alameda's portfolio of nearly 500 investments, including several media investments. In addition, The Block revealed that its former CEO had secretly received $43 million in loans from SBF.

SBF: I did disappear for a while when the crash happened. This meant that my voice was not heard for a while, which I thought was appropriate at the time. But looking back, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on. But I knew the truth would come out one way or another, but I should have fought back aggressively against what wasn't true.

Deeptide TechFlow: Previously in the media, you have been promoted as an "effective altruist", but now, in the eyes of most people, this is just a form of artificial packaging for camouflage and deception. What is the real Sam like, and what are your abiding beliefs?

SBF: I try to do what's right for the future of the world, obviously. But I screwed up now, and I know I didn't have the impact I thought I should have. I deeply regret and will never be able to solve this problem, which will haunt me forever. But that's what I've tried to do and that's what I'll continue to try to do. This is exciting, but it does create regret. I want to do what I know is good for the world, this is the same, although I have done a lot of mistakes, but it is also the direction I have been trying to.

Tech Flow: Are you a believer in cryptocurrencies and blockchain, or do you just see cryptocurrencies as a way to make money?

SBF: Yes, I am a true believer. When I first came across cryptocurrency, it was just a tool to make money. In 2017, I started trading for the first time, I didn't know what cryptocurrency was and didn't care that much, it was just something I could trade and make money on. But in my first year of trading, I learned a lot about what cryptocurrencies are. I have to use it and transfer it between cryptocurrency exchanges. In the process, I learned why cryptocurrencies exist in the first place.

The future of exchanges

Deep Tide TechFlow: Binance's position has been strengthened since the collapse of FTX. What do you think of the future of centralized exchanges? Will Binance remain the dominant player?

SBF: Good question, I'm not sure what's going to happen, but obviously Binance is getting stronger. At this point, they own most of the trading volume. I had disagreements with them and was very frustrated with a lot of what they did when FTX thunderstruck. However, they've also built a good product, and their users love using Binance, so give them credit for that.

In this market, it's important to have competition, and if you have a monopoly, you don't necessarily see real competition or growth. It is important to prevent monopolies, and it is important to have multiple exchanges that are truly liquid, including Binance. Hopefully other institutions will continue to survive and thrive, but I'm very concerned that this could lead to a certain centralization of the exchange market, and I don't think that's a healthy development for everyone.

Deeptide TechFlow: What do you think about the future of CEX and DEX?

SBF: Some things can only be done on a centralized exchange. To illustrate this point, consider that anything really computation-intensive is hard to do on DEX because of the throughput and latency constraints. Even on today's fastest decentralized networks, tens of thousands of transactions and hundreds of millions of seconds of latency, those numbers are far worse than what you can get on a centralized server. So when you have a lot of trading or high-frequency trading, there's an advantage to being on a centralized exchange.

But on the other hand, a decentralized exchange is verifiable, it has a reserve to prove that whatever it does, the code is laid out on the chain. Anyone can build on it and can make other things out of it, which is very powerful. So a decentralized exchange also has a lot of advantages.

My guess is that we're going to see a combination of some decentralized exchanges within some centralized exchanges, and really computant-intensive products will tend to trade on centralized exchanges and less on decentralized exchanges. You can trade faster on a centralized exchange, you have more computing resources at your disposal, and obviously that comes at a cost.

Deeptide TechFlow: What do you think of CZ's role in the process of the incident and how did his actions affect the overall situation?

SBF: He played a big part in that. I think there was a lot of PR going on in the months leading up to that, to undermine FTX's trust in the market. In the end, he triggered bankruptcy. Not only did he initially say he was going to sell FTT, there was a flurry of follow-through tweets over the weekend, he tried to be as market emotional as possible rather than just trying to find an OTC deal. If selling FTT was his primary goal, he chose a very long process that would take a long time, which would enable him to keep talking about the topic. I think it may have been deliberate. He may have deliberately wanted FTX to lose more in the process. When it was about to crash, he said he wanted to buy. I don't think he was prepared to take the idea seriously, or that he ever seriously thought about buying FTX. He just wants to deal with us once, and he's bound to back out eventually. I am not satisfied with CZ's role in the incident, this is a targeted act, it is not trying to help the industry to become better, it just wants to hurt competitors.

Deeptide TechFlow: Do you think he triggered the crisis?

SBF: Yes, he was the one who ultimately took the action that led to the explosion. Of course I'm also to blame. It's my fault that FTX didn't manage risk well, so he was able to take advantage of it. But I do think he pulled the trigger.

Deep Tide TechFlow: Assuming no Coindesk coverage and CZ dumping of FTT, how do you think FTX would have played out?

SBF: That's a very good question. I don't know what's going to happen, but I think we're going to have more of a turnaround. In the early days of the event, different forces came in from all sides, which led to the collapse. Over the past few months, I have begun to re-engage in the business with the view that FTX will emerge stronger and our balance sheet will emerge stronger.

Deeptide TechFlow: Why are you getting back into the business? Are there any nodes?

SBF: Nothing special. It's just that in the previous year, I'd been wasting a lot of time on things, and I'd been spending more time on media, on brand building, which I loved about FTX's vision for the future. They are important, not that they are not relevant to the business, but I have a lot more important things.

First of all, I should have focused on risk management, on overhauling our matching engine and other things. And there's no room for explanation other than I screwed up. Over the past few months, I've basically come to terms with the fact that I've become less grounded and that I need to get more involved in building the business, work harder, and focus more on some of the important things about the job, like tinkering with the matching engine and other things. I had a lot on my plate at the time, and I had figured out how to manage risk. Unfortunately, the crash came sooner than the result.

Deeptide TechFlow: Founder of Skybridge   Anthony Scaramucci says that on a fundraising trip to the Middle East, you lashed out at CZ in front of Middle Eastern investors and then it got back to CZ. Is that true? If so, do you regret it now?

SBF: I don't know. Scaramucci must have heard something, I don't know what he thought or felt. On fundraising calls, everyone talks about their product. I talked a lot about the strengths of the exchange, about what we do well, and how to stand out from the competition. The most common question asked during the fundraising process is, what sets you apart from your competitors?

That's what I'm talking about, and sometimes I talk in general about what sets us apart, and sometimes I talk specifically about what our strengths are compared to other specific exchanges. I tried to be honest about what I thought was good and bad about them, and obviously Binance did something so well that it led to them becoming the largest exchange in the world, which is incredible. But I'll also talk about the ways in which I think we're better than our competitors, and I think FTX is better than Binance ina lot of ways. And that's probably true for everyone. When they hear good and bad things, it's the negative part that resonates with them.

Deeptide TechFlow: FTX got a lot of funding from star VCS like Sequoia Capital, Paradigm and Temasek. Why do you think you attracted a lot of institutional investment at the time? What's the trick?

SBF: We were looking for corporate partners, and they were building a collection of white label partners. They help us invest to do that, build relationships, and get the capital for acquisitions. I don't know why they invested in FTX and me, they know better than I do. But I do think we are, in many ways, a very compelling product and company, but we obviously have a lot of room for improvement.

Deeptide TechFlow: You've been donating to the Democratic Party since 2019, becoming one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party. What's your motivation? Is this money coming from users? How does FTX benefit from hands-on politics?

SBF: Those donations weren't made on FTX. That was my donation to Kennedy. It's good for all those pandemic prevention and other causes that I think are important and that I think candidates can help support. I do spend a lot of time in Washington DC talking to regulators and policymakers, but in order to help build the regulatory framework for the cryptocurrency ecosystem and then talk to regulators about FTX licenses. The main purpose of the donation is to prevent a pandemic.

Where to go in the future

Deeptide TechFlow: Currently, there are many forces fighting over the disposal of FTX assets. When do you expect FTX users who have been unable to withdraw their money to get some of their assets back?

SBF: It's messy. Many governments have stepped in. There's the Bahamas, Chapter 11 Team, regulators in Europe, regulators in Australia, regulators in Japan... It's actually very confusing. I hope that whoever is in charge will put the customer first and that they will do everything possible to help the customer as much as possible. Some of them are doing that, a lot of international regulators and managers have been helping customers, but unfortunately it does look like there's going to be a jurisdictional battle.

Deeptide TechFlow: As far as we know, there are many FTX employees who trust you, and most of their assets are also in FTX, and they have not withdrawn them. For these employees, will you compensate them? What would you like to say to them?

SBF: I'm terribly sorry. I'm willing to do whatever I want to make it up to them, and I'm not in a position to do that right now. I didn't have the funds to give them, but I didn't forget that. I hope I can be worthy of them. I hope that one day I will be able to make every other FTX customer whole. I'm working on that. I can't promise that I will succeed, but this is where I spend all my time right now.

Frankly, I think it's already happening, and I'm surprised and frustrated and angry that it's not starting to happen. I would have expected all customers in the US and Japan to be compensated by now, which should have happened. I am confused and surprised as to why chapter 11 team has not already done this. Also, I had billions of dollars of potential financing proposals that didn't get taken up. Both of these things are very frustrating. I think the chapter 11 team could have started returning some assets to customers if they wanted to, but that hasn't happened yet. I will do everything in my power to make sure that customers are compensated as much as possible. In the next month or two, there will be some progress on that.

Deeptide TechFlow: Have you received any criminal charges? Are you worried about going to jail?

SBF: Not yet, I don't know what's going to happen. Clearly, regulators are studying the issue. But that's not what I'm focused on right now. I'm focused on dealing with the customer. Somewhere, somewhere, maybe I need to think about myself, but not now.

* Note: This interview was conducted before SBF was indicted by the US Justice Department and arrested by the Bahamas police.

Deeptide TechFlow: Do you feel guilty about having such a significant impact on the industry? What is your biggest regret?

SBF: I feel unbelievably guilty and unbelievably bad about what happened. I didn't want any of this to happen, but if I had acted more, I could have stopped it, I should have had more of a say, but I didn't, and I really regret that, that period of time after the incident I shouldn't have disappeared in the media, I could have done more.

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