Months before FTX founder and cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried lost his $15.6 billion fortune and his company, he was with Bill Clinton at a strange cryptocurrency conference in the Bahamas. Clinton was a paid speaker at the April 2022 Crypto Bahamas event hosted by now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, where Democratic mega-donor Bankman-Fried moderated a panel with former British president and former prime minister Tony Blair. Clinton’s comments were deadlocked, but a recording of her advocating a “do no harm” approach to cryptocurrency regulation was leaked, according to industry outlet Trust Nodes. Clinton also said there is a “temptation to abuse” digital currencies, but praised the emerging technology as “obviously serious” in his remarks, Politico reported in April. “You want to get it right in the regulatory space,” he reportedly said, referring to his administration’s efforts to deregulate financial markets in the 1990s. STOCK STOCK NEWS: FTX FALLOUT, MACY’S STOCK Jumps, FED’S BULLARD BEWARE OF INTEREST RATES Former President Bill Clinton speaks at Temple Emanu-El on Nov. 10, 2022, in New York. (Michael Kovac/Getty Images/Getty Images) Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, during an interview on an episode of Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein in New York, August 17, 2022. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images ) The April conference was an expensive, exclusive party for well-known crypto investors, celebrities and world leaders. Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom were in attendance, as were NFL GOAT Tom Brady and then-wife Giselle Bundchen, while DJ Steve Aoki and former One Direction singer Liam Payne provided entertainment for conference attendees, who paid over from $3,000 for their tickets. FTX hosted the event in partnership with the thought leadership forum SALT, which was founded by Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House communications director for former President Donald Trump. It was a celebration of the enormous potential for wealth that makes cryptocurrencies so enticing. But now, seven months later, the inherent dangers of the loosely regulated market are apparent. FTX’s stunning collapse from the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange into bankruptcy in the space of a week has left investors stunned, customers fleeing and lawmakers calling for new regulations on the crypto industry. “I started and should have done better,” Bankman-Fried wrote Thursday, starkly highlighting how his mismanagement left FTX with an $8 billion hole in its budget. FTX BANKRUPTCY WILL OFFER A LOOK BEHIND CRYPTO’S DARK CURTAIN Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during the annual meeting of members of the Institute of International Finance in Washington, DC, October 13, 2022. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images) After Bankman-Fried resigned in disgrace, his successor John Ray III—the lawyer who previously oversaw the $23 billion bankruptcy of energy company Enron—accused the former CEO of allowing “a complete failure of corporate controls.” “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of reliable financial information as has occurred here,” Ray said. he said in a statement with the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. “From the compromised integrity of systems and flawed regulatory oversight overseas, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unskilled and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.” FTX lawyers said Thursday that Bankman-Fried’s “unconventional leadership style,” “his incessant and disruptive tweeting” and “an almost complete lack of reliable corporate records” have complicated the company’s restructuring efforts. In court filings, they accused the embattled crypto tycoon of trying to move assets out of the United States and into the Bahamas, where they would be under the control of the Bahamian government, in an apparent attempt to circumvent US regulators. LAWMAKERS TO INVESTIGATE FTX CRASH IN DECEMBER HEARING In this photo image, the stock trading chart of FTX Token (FTT) seen on a smartphone screen. (Photo by Rafael Henrique / SOPA Images/Sipa USA) No Use Germany. (Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/Sipa USA/Reuters Photos) Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Bankman-Fried, who has donated about $38 million to Democratic and left-wing causes over the past two years, has lobbied for regulations that would be favorable to FTX. “I’m optimistic that in the next year or so, we’re going to see some really substantial steps forward in the global regulatory environment and the US regulatory environment for cryptocurrencies. You know, it’s been a pretty tough back and forth, I think, for a while and I think [the] The industry is as much to blame for this as anybody in terms of the relationships that have developed between, you know, the industry and the regulators,” Bankman-Fried told FOX Business Network ten months before his downfall. GET FOX BUSINESS THE GO BY CLICKING HERE “But I think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel there. And I think there are some simple policy proposals that could solve what the regulators want, while also allowing cryptocurrencies to really grow a lot as an asset class that drives liquidity and volume on land,” he added. US lawmakers have called the FTX crisis a “loss” and the House of Representatives will hold hearings in December to investigate the FTX collapse and “the broader implications for the digital asset ecosystem.” FOX Business’ Megan Henney contributed to this report.
