Sam Bankman Fried maintains that FTT was “more legitimate” than the majority of tokens.

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) had his first extended interview since FTX filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, and Tiffany Fong, a freelancer journalist, posted it to YouTube.

The former CEO provided his opinion on a number of allegations made against him following the bankruptcy as well as the situation with FTX US clients on November 16. He also thought about FTT, the native coin of the exchange, which he said has a higher intrinsic worth than the majority of other cryptocurrencies.

What Led to the Demise of FTX and FTT?

Wong started by interrogating SBF about earlier allegations that the CEO changed the FTX’s financial records via a “backdoor” that allowed him to carry out directives covertly. In the days following FTX’s bankruptcy, Reuters made numerous assertions similar to this one, adding that customer funds were transferred to FTX’s sister trading desk, Alameda Research, through the backdoor.

SBF responded to the caller, “I most definitely wasn’t developing some backdoor in the system.”
In particular, Gary Wang, the head of engineering at FTX, was cited by Reuters as having built the backdoor on November 15th. According to Wang, SBF, and his closest friends were the only ones who were aware of the financial transfer.

SBF stated that he didn’t think the exchange’s token was useless with regard to FTT. Because of FTT’s buy + burn mechanism, fee discounts, and cash flow, he claimed, “I think its value is more economically underpinned than the average token was.”

SBF refuted assertions that the token’s demise was caused by illiquidity of the asset or by margin calls at Alameda and FTX (where FTT was used as collateral). Instead, he said that the big selloff that destroyed the exchange’s pricing was merely the result of a loss of confidence in it.

He added, “This was the reaction to news coming out regarding FTX and Alameda, and their solvency.

After CoinDesk leaked Alameda’s balance sheet on November 2nd, concerns about FTX and Alameda’s solvency spread.

Regrets over the bankruptcy of FTX US

On November 11th, hundreds of connected businesses, including FTX US and Alameda Research, joined FTX in declaring bankruptcy.

Following his statement the day before that FTX US assets were “not financially impacted” by the fallout, Bankman-Fried caused much confusion and resentment among people.

He claimed that FTX US was still solvent and that the company “was so fucking solvent that it could absolutely [throw] 250 million dollars to a hat on the way to bankruptcy.”