Sam Bankman-Fried says he 'didn't ever try to commit fraud'

Bankman-Fried told Reuters the company did not "secretly transfer" but rather misread its "confusing internal labelling

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, attempted to distance himself from any suggestion of fraud in his first public appearance since his company's collapse stunned investors and left creditors facing losses totalling billions of dollars.

(For insights on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, business and policy, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache.)

Speaking at the New York Times' Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bankman-Fried said that he did not knowingly commingle customer funds on FTX with funds at his proprietary trading firm, Alameda Research.

The liquidity crunch at FTX came after Bankman-Fried secretly moved $10 billion of FTX customer funds to Alameda Research, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. At least $1 billion in customer funds had vanished, the people said.

Bankman-Fried told Reuters the company did not "secretly transfer" but rather misread its "confusing internal labelling.

FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried stepped down as chief executive on November 11, after traders pulled $6 billion from the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal.

"By late on Nov. 6 we were putting together all of the data... that obviously should have been part of the dashboards I was always looking at... and when we looked at that, there was a serious problem there," Bankman-Fried said.