FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried is set to testify before a US House committee on Tuesday, the cryptocurrency exchange's founder and the congressional panel said on Friday, as regulators investigate his role in the wake of its collapse.
The chair of the House of Representatives
Committee on Financial Services, Maxine Waters, told Reuters on Thursday that
she was prepared to subpoena Bankman-Fried if he did not agree to appear before
the panel, which is holding a hearing as part of its probe into FTX.
In a statement late on Friday, the panel
said it would hear from newly appointed FTX CEO John Ray and from
Bankman-Fried, FTX's founder and former CEO, on Tuesday.
"I still do not have access to much of
my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able
to say, and I won't be as helpful as I'd like," Bankman-Fried said on
Friday on Twitter.
"But as the committee still thinks it
would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th," he added
The hybrid hearing is scheduled for 10am ET
(8:30pm IST) on Tuesday, the committee said.
In recent weeks, US authorities have sought
information from investors and potential investors in FTX, two sources with
knowledge of the requests told Reuters. Prosecutors and regulators have not charged
Bankman-Fried with any crime.
US Justice Department officials met this
week with FTX's court-appointed overseers to examine whether hundreds of
millions of dollars were improperly transferred to the Bahamas, where FTX is
based, around the same time that the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy in
Delaware, Bloomberg reported late on Friday.
Both FTX and the Justice Department did not
immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the report.
Battling crypto pioneers
FTX filed for bankruptcy last month and
Bankman-Fried stepped down as chief executive, after traders pulled $6 billion from
the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal.
Reuters detailed last month the bitter
rivalry between Bankman-Fried and Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao, who
in the months before FTX's downfall had competed for market share.
Public tension between the two erupted
again on Friday after a string of tweets by Zhao.
Zhao said that after Binance, an early
investor in FTX, sought to exit its stake over one-and-a-half years ago,
Bankman-Fried made "offensive tirades" against Binance team members.
Binance sold back to FTX its stake in the
company last year.
In reply, Bankman-Fried wrote: "We
initiated conversations around buying you out, and we decided to do it because
it was important for our business."
"You threatened to walk at the last
minute if we didn't kick in an extra ~$75m," he added. "You didn't
even have the rights to pull out as an investor unless we chose to buy you
out—much of the tokens/equity were still locked."
"Not that it matters now. You also
can't force us to sell if we don't want to," Zhao replied.
"It was never a competition or fight.
No one won." © Reuters