One of the most interesting things to watch in the Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) fallout are those who previously praised him, now trying to figure out why they ever said things that sound completely insane today.
In all fairness, while Sam's wrongdoings were deliberate and dishonest - blaming everyone who once worked with, or once simply liked the guy is going a step too far, in my opinion. If the accusations we've heard are true, you can be sure very few people knew the truth
Sam had accumulated a sizeable list of endorsements, and it wasn't made up of a bunch of easily scammed or gullible people...
Even the person who begun FTX's downfall first believed they were legit. Binance CEO 'CZ' started the avalanche that would burry Sam and FTX by sending out of tweet when he lost confidence in the company - but before that, he trusted Sam and FTX enough to have $2 billion of his assets tied up in their FTX's official token, FTT.
Earning trust within an industry can be a chain reaction, where getting 'in' with one person who is more established than yourself can lead to a dozen more if you play your cards right. So who was the first 'big name' in crypto to publicly link themselves with Sam? I have no idea, and they aren't to blame for this anyway.
While researching another story I came across this, the only organization that I've seen address the situation by adding disclaimers to their old write-ups about Sam.
The organization is called 80,000 Hours, and they say their goal is to 'provide research and support to help students and graduates switch into careers that effectively tackle the world’s most pressing problems' 80,000 hours refers to the average time someone will spend working in their chosen career in their entire lifetime.
What was a page on their site containing 10 paragraphs of pure praise for SBF, now begins with a statement:
Our statement regarding the collapse of FTX
The collapse of FTX is likely to cause a tremendous amount of harm – to customers, employees, and many others who have relied on FTX. We are deeply concerned about those affected and, along with our community, are grappling with how to respond.
Though we do not know for sure whether anything illegal happened, we unequivocally condemn any immoral or illegal actions that may have taken place.
Prior to this, we had celebrated Sam Bankman-Fried’s apparent success, had held him up as a positive example of someone pursuing a high-impact career, and had written about how we encouraged him to use a strategy of earning to give (for example, on this page). We feel shaken by recent events, and are not sure exactly what to say or think.
In the meantime, we will start by removing instances on our site where Sam was highlighted as a positive example of someone pursuing a high-impact career, since, to say the least, we no longer endorse that. We are leaving up discussions of Sam in places that seem important for transparency, for example this blog post on the growth of effective altruism in 2021, and this user story.
In the coming weeks and months we will be thinking hard about what we should do going forward and ways in which we should have acted differently.
If you are out there trying the best you can to use your career to help solve the world’s most pressing problems with honesty and integrity, we also want to say we support and value you.
We are following the situation closely and hope to write more soon.
Now they're all sharing the blame with SBF in a just-filed lawsuit that argues Sam, and the celebs who promoted him, are responsible for paying back the billions in lost FTX user funds...
The lawsuit includes every celeb who endorsed FTX along with Sam himself as former users seek to recoup lost funds. The case if filed in the Florida court system with no date yet for initial hearings.
No one is miscalculating the situation worse than Sam himself...
Sam chimed in briefly a couple times over the past week, with statements like "I didn't want to do sketchy stuff, there are huge negative effects from it, and I didn't mean to".Then, while he no longer holds any position at FTX, and is under investigation for multiple serious criminal offenses, he shared his goal of raising another $8 billion to "make customers whole" - apparently forgetting this ended with him unable to raise anything, and that's when he had an exchange to sell.
The new FTX CEO, appointed to oversee the company bankruptcy, and previously known for cleaning up the massive Enron bankruptcy, John Ray, was forced to counter Sam's actions with an announcement reminding people Sam is "not employed" with FTX any longer, and therefore, "does not speak for" the company in any capacity.
With the 'clean up' team in place, and authorized to access everything FTX controls - the deep dive that will expose anything still unknown is now underway.
[ WHAT DO YOU THINK? ] Have we heard the worst of it? Or will more be uncovered? Share your thoughts by Tweeting us at @TheCryptoPress
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Author: Ross Davis
Silicon Valley Newsroom
GCP | Breaking Crypto News
