The former boss of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, charged in particular with fraud in the United States, denied on Thursday any attempt at scam and directly attacked his former rival, Changpeng Zhao, the director General of Binance.
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"
I didn't steal any money and I certainly didn't hide billions
" of dollars, wrote Sam Bankman-Fried on a blog he just started on the Substack platform.
The fallen star of cryptocurrencies has already pleaded not guilty in early January to the eight counts brought against him by American justice.
Pending his trial, he is under house arrest with his parents in California after the payment of a bail of 250 million dollars.
In his long blog post, the one who goes by the nickname SBF goes into detail about the events which, according to him, led to the bankruptcy of FTX in November.
In particular, he claims that the collapse of the brokerage and investment firm Alameda Research, which he founded, was due to the overall fall in the cryptocurrency market and not to fraudulent actions.
Alameda's troubles then spread to FTX and other players in the industry, says Sam Bankman-Fried.
It also ensures that FTX US, the US entity of FTX, remains solvent to date.
More seriously, SBF accuses Changpeng Zhao, boss of the Binance cryptocurrency platform, of having orchestrated "
an extremely effective public relations campaign for several months
" aimed at destabilizing FTX.
In early November, Changpeng Zhao, aka CZ, announced that it would sell all FTT, a virtual currency issued by FTX, held by Binance.
The move precipitated the downfall of Alameda and FTX, according to Sam Bankman-Fried.
CZ has repeatedly refuted these accusations.
"
FTX committed suicide [...] because they stole billions of dollars in user funds
," he tweeted in December.
Read alsoCrypto: FTX liquidators have recovered more than $5 billion in assets
SBF's claims have also been contradicted by several US regulators as well as FTX's new CEO, John Ray.
Unlike Sam Bankman-Fried, fellow FTX co-founder Gary Wang has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with US authorities, as has former Alameda executive Caroline Ellison.
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