1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,200 I should be the f*** out of that one. You know, the first thing they sat after that was 2 00:00:05,200 --> 00:00:09,520 the exam. You're only one thing to tell you. You have to promise that you never ever ever 3 00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:15,600 saved f*** out together. Today we have an exclusive interview with Sam Bankman Freed discussing 4 00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:20,560 the bankruptcy of his billion dollar company FTX. Why he hates when people talk about his love 5 00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:26,960 life and his massive donations to political parties. Now since going bankrupt and being accused 6 00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:32,000 to fraud, Sam's been mostly quiet, but recently that changed when he gave an interview to a 7 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:37,440 citizen journalist Tiffany Fong. Now we've actually talked about Tiffany's work on the show before. 8 00:00:37,440 --> 00:00:42,960 Last time she released an insider call of a different billion dollar fraud, SELCIS. This time she's 9 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:48,480 talking to Sam Bankman Freed. And since I know a lot about FTX, hopefully I can provide some 10 00:00:48,480 --> 00:00:55,200 context and fact checking where needed because Sam, he lies a lot. Now we'll be talking to Tiffany 11 00:00:55,280 --> 00:00:59,520 later. But for now, let's talk about one of the biggest claims in the call. You might have heard 12 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:05,280 by now that Sam was the second largest Democrat donor in 2022, which in addition to his significant 13 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:09,760 donations to news outlets might have been one of the reasons that he was covered so favorably 14 00:01:09,760 --> 00:01:15,440 with an image of being the most generous billionaire. But ultimately Sam told Tiffany on a call 15 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:17,200 that this wasn't the full story. 16 00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:24,000 They do need a focusing on those parties to clear. That was not generally known because his 17 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:29,680 plate, it isn't uniting literally the highest profile of the Supreme Court East House of Decide 18 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:33,520 and the thing everyone talked about when they talk about MP's finance. For some reason, 19 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:38,960 he's cracked as no one can possibly find that. He idea that someone he's cracked is adding to 20 00:01:38,960 --> 00:01:42,720 gaked art. So, I don't know, all my Republican donations were dark. 21 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:48,880 Wow, Sam is claiming he gave Republicans the same amount, but under the table. 22 00:01:48,880 --> 00:01:54,080 The citizens united ruling that he's referring to, it allows people to donate so-called dark 23 00:01:54,080 --> 00:02:00,320 money to influence politicians. In other words, Sam wouldn't be required to disclose that donation. 24 00:02:00,320 --> 00:02:04,240 And the reason he wanted to do it this way was so that basically the journal was 25 00:02:04,240 --> 00:02:09,600 swed like a more. And the reason was not for real if I reason. In his case report is free to 26 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:14,560 f**k out if you're doing it for Republicans, you're all super liberal. And he didn't want to have 27 00:02:14,560 --> 00:02:19,840 that fight, so I made all the Republicans. All right, there's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with 28 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:24,880 the fact is this even true. I don't know. I have no idea. He could be lying. Sam lies all the time. 29 00:02:24,880 --> 00:02:29,280 For example, anyone remember what he said, FTX was solvent right before it went bust? 30 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:34,640 Yeah, so because of that, because I don't know if he's lying, I decided I'd try to verify these 31 00:02:34,640 --> 00:02:40,240 dark money donations. Go figure, I couldn't because the money is it's dark. You're not supposed 32 00:02:40,240 --> 00:02:45,840 to be able to find it. But either way, if he's lying, this looks bad for him. But if he's telling 33 00:02:45,840 --> 00:02:53,440 the truth, it looks worse. I mean, it shows you how cynical Sam was. He never cared about politics. 34 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:58,560 He cared about power and perception. That's why he played both sides. So he always would come 35 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:03,280 out on top. And worst of all, they bought it. The media loved him. Some of them still love him. 36 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:08,880 And going back to the part about trust worthy though, this is what's kind of hard about 37 00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:15,280 covering Sam in general. Everything has an asterisk or a question mark next to it because 38 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:21,520 unfortunately, Sam is very biased against not going to jail. He wants that to be the outcome here. 39 00:03:21,520 --> 00:03:26,640 So everything we talk about needs to be viewed through that lens. So for the next part of this call, 40 00:03:26,640 --> 00:03:32,960 I want to talk about an example of how Sam lies and opposites the truth. Because so much of it 41 00:03:32,960 --> 00:03:38,080 is about trying to craft an image with Sam. Obviously, we just talk about how he tried to craft 42 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:43,360 an image of being this generous billionaire. But after the FTX blow up, we can't be that anymore. 43 00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:49,920 What's the new image? Well, instead of being a fraud, the new image is a smart guy who made an 44 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:56,240 embarrassing mistake. And you'll hear that in how he answers this next question, which is essentially 45 00:03:56,240 --> 00:04:02,480 talking about the back door in FTX, which was used to defraud customers. And pay attention to how 46 00:04:02,560 --> 00:04:06,720 he answers it. See, I mean, I think there was something about a back door that allowed you to 47 00:04:07,360 --> 00:04:13,520 execute commands that could alter the company's financial records without alerting others. 48 00:04:13,520 --> 00:04:17,520 Something like that. This was put in place. I think that was a Reuters article, 49 00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:23,760 which made it seem like you secretly were moving money in the background. 50 00:04:25,040 --> 00:04:30,960 Wait, and this is something that I would be doing? I don't know. It kind of said that SBF put 51 00:04:31,040 --> 00:04:36,880 like a secret back door so that he was moving funds to Alameda. And it was undetected. 52 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:41,520 Like this was something that you put into place potentially. I mean, that's how it read on the article. 53 00:04:42,560 --> 00:04:45,600 Well, I think for think that I can tell you definitely not true. 54 00:04:45,600 --> 00:04:50,960 Okay, I don't know how to go. It's the honest embarrassing answer. So, I certainly wasn't 55 00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:56,000 like building some back door and this is, I could barely use this stuff. I'm not that 56 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,760 sure. I knew this is, I didn't just insist in saying, well, from it, you do your interface 57 00:04:59,760 --> 00:05:06,960 perspective, but I, I have literally never opened the building. So, for any of us, yes. 58 00:05:07,760 --> 00:05:12,720 So, I certainly built back door in there. And I don't know that that there are thank you. 59 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:20,080 I find this response to be so telling because Sam is lying here while telling the truth. I mean, 60 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:25,520 it is technically correct that he didn't build the back door in FTX for Alameda. 61 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:31,600 But he wasn't even the person accused of building it because it turns out Tiffany had misremembered 62 00:05:31,600 --> 00:05:38,480 the Reuters article. It wasn't Sam. It was Sam's right hand man, Gary Wang, who is accused of 63 00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:43,680 building it. Now, this is obviously a simple mistake and Sam would know what she's talking about, 64 00:05:43,680 --> 00:05:48,240 who she's talking about and that Gary had built it. But instead of answering the real question, 65 00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:53,440 Sam uses this minor slip-up to create a loophole for himself to dodge accountability. Oh, 66 00:05:53,440 --> 00:05:57,200 what, I coded it? No, I didn't code it. I don't code. That's clearly alive because I don't 67 00:05:57,200 --> 00:06:01,600 code it all. See, this couldn't be true because I don't code. And he frames everything as this 68 00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:07,600 preposterous idea while full-well-knowing that his partner is the guy who built it. And he uses it 69 00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:12,800 to dodge the part of the story where he stole money and springboards into the part where he can 70 00:06:12,800 --> 00:06:18,000 sell his preferred narrative that he just made an embarrassing mistake. Well, they try and give you 71 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:24,240 your neighbor to that. So, like, think that he's true that like moves through symbols that statement. 72 00:06:25,840 --> 00:06:35,600 Which is that, um, uh, so what's the f*** off? I, long and I was wrong. I've been dressed on 73 00:06:35,600 --> 00:06:41,360 Alameda's Valipus on FKX by a series of large numbers embarrassing the large-knowants. And 74 00:06:41,840 --> 00:06:48,320 he possibly, like, very poorly-available to the accounting thing, which was a historical artifact 75 00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:54,160 of his time before when, like, springboard for FKX had bank accounts. And the results of that 76 00:06:54,160 --> 00:07:00,800 was basically, there was a time we got the honor when people would wire money to Alameda. And 77 00:07:00,800 --> 00:07:07,680 then I was credited on a FKX. Yeah, that is basically never got true to up. And that was, like, a three-day 78 00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:14,240 five minutes. And that that Alameda was, like, the answer more lever than I thought it was. 79 00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:18,080 I don't know if that's not what that comment's talking about, but that's the thing I can 80 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:23,120 consider to be a close to thing I can think of for it. This is the image Sam wants to sell you. 81 00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:29,840 One where he didn't steal money, he just fell prey to a mistake, a historical artifact, 82 00:07:29,840 --> 00:07:35,360 an accounting error. Honestly, sounds like it could happen to anyone. You forget you had that number 83 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:39,920 in the spreadsheet, and oops, it turned out to be $8 billion of your customer's money. Now, 84 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:46,080 he's not explicit about what this accounting error was, but I can guess based on what he said, 85 00:07:46,080 --> 00:07:51,680 because back in the day, FKX didn't have a bank account for customer funds. So they had customers 86 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:58,240 wire money to Alameda research their sister company instead of FKX. And FKX would then just credit 87 00:07:58,240 --> 00:08:03,680 that money to their customers accounts. So I'm guessing Sam's explanation here is that they 88 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:10,240 mislabeled those incoming funds to Alameda as Alameda's funds. And then somehow forgot that they 89 00:08:10,240 --> 00:08:15,520 owed those FKX people their money. It's just a number on a website somewhere when they go out to 90 00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:19,760 cash it out. All of a sudden it's like, well, oh, I thought that was Alameda's money. That's the 91 00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:24,560 strongest defense I can maybe think of here that, oh, we had this complicated accounting system that 92 00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:30,000 was confusing, and we screwed up oopsie dupesy we lost $8 billion. And crucially, you'll notice that 93 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:36,400 Sam's explanation requires no amount of fraud or stolen money. It's just a poorly labeled account. 94 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:41,360 It's an embarrassing mistake. And we even saw this end up on one of Sam's internal spreadsheets, 95 00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:48,560 as a quote, hidden poorly internally labeled Fiat account, which he says actually explains most of 96 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:53,760 this story. It's a whole long saga. Okay. And then there's a few dumb 97 00:08:53,760 --> 00:09:00,240 fucking account that we've been using later. And that was like two thirds of the whole saga. 98 00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:06,480 Now, this has to be one of the most transparent dog-eight my homework excuse, just in the world of 99 00:09:06,480 --> 00:09:13,120 high finance. You know, I mislabeled an account. I just accidentally labeled your money as my money. 100 00:09:14,080 --> 00:09:19,040 Oops. Sorry guys, lost $8 billion. I didn't mean to do that. I mean, again, this is me 101 00:09:19,040 --> 00:09:24,320 reading into what he said here about why he lost it. We still don't know exactly what this 102 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:29,520 internally labeled account is. I'm just trying to give the best explanation from the available 103 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:35,200 evidence. But either way, Sam claims that even despite all of this, the real mistake was actually 104 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:40,400 declaring bankruptcy in the first place. Because without it, well, things would kind of be fine. 105 00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:46,800 And like, in the saga ends, and I honestly got to be sure to buy a pile of bankruptcy, 106 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:52,320 all users would be full, and patrols would be on that. Yeah, it's right now. And not just the 107 00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:58,560 Westerner National's law. And I'm still good there. We'll see. I don't know. It might happen 108 00:09:58,560 --> 00:10:05,600 it might not. But I, uh, eat a minute after a file for bankruptcy for a billion more opinion. 109 00:10:06,560 --> 00:10:12,080 Oh, look, quickly. Are you able to add it to the estate? I'm working on it. But the current 110 00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:15,840 trustees of the state would rather burn it all to the ground at a same. And it's I'm 111 00:10:15,840 --> 00:10:20,400 to find a way to bring more value to customers. So right now, I'm just looking at your 112 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:25,280 institutional battle between countries over the bankruptcies. All right, a lot more to unpack here. 113 00:10:25,280 --> 00:10:30,400 Sam claims that FTX and FTX US would have basically been fine, had he not filed for bankruptcy, 114 00:10:30,400 --> 00:10:36,240 because he got $4 billion in liquidity minutes after filing. Now, the problem with this is that 115 00:10:36,720 --> 00:10:41,360 we just have no evidence any of this is true. And given all the past claims of Sam that have 116 00:10:41,360 --> 00:10:47,200 proved to be wrong, like his solvency, I find this very uncredible. It's very convenient when you 117 00:10:47,200 --> 00:10:52,400 think about it that, oh, we got to bail out right after I can't help anything anymore. And that 118 00:10:52,400 --> 00:10:57,600 those darn bankruptcy lawyers just want to burn it all down. Somehow I doubt that anybody would 119 00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:03,360 turn down $4 billion for customers, but that appears to be the story Sam sticking with. 120 00:11:03,360 --> 00:11:07,840 In addition to the Sam also insists that FTX is not as bad off as people say. Here's 121 00:11:07,840 --> 00:11:11,760 some responding to a claim that users will get almost nothing from the bankruptcy. 122 00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:17,200 Well, I'm not nothing like I think, sorry, there's no accounting like it's liquid assets that are 123 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:22,560 there in the 80. If nothing happens if I can never do anything again, there are other unfices. 124 00:11:22,640 --> 00:11:27,200 And then you also get a penny of the amount of penny of the dollar. When you get around to 125 00:11:27,200 --> 00:11:32,080 getting time, and your actual get time, you'll 20, 25 cents from the dollars. I don't know exactly 126 00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:36,960 what something like that. Now, these are just more wild lies from Sam specifically about the part 127 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:43,760 about FTX international, which is hopelessly insolvent. He claims it only needs $4 billion, but that's 128 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:48,960 not true. The only way he arrives at this number is because he's counting billions of dollars in 129 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:54,720 the f*** coins that FTX has as real money. While full-well-knowing, he could never sell that. 130 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:59,840 So I find this to be kind of dishonest because like if I create coffee coin and create a billion 131 00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:05,040 tokens, sell one of them for a dollar, technically my market cap would be a billion dollars. 132 00:12:05,840 --> 00:12:10,640 But you'd be a fool to actually believe that's what I'm worth. But that's essentially what Sam's 133 00:12:10,640 --> 00:12:15,120 doing with his own balance sheet. He's treating these coins which he owns the majority of, 134 00:12:15,120 --> 00:12:19,520 as if he could sell them at the current market price, which everyone knows he can't. 135 00:12:19,520 --> 00:12:24,800 And this denial also extends to his own coin, FTT, which is the native token of FTX, 136 00:12:24,800 --> 00:12:29,200 which used as collateral to get these loans. Now Sam says, there's probably a stake to use the 137 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:36,320 mescalateral. But he argues that FTT was really valuable, although hearing him explain how is 138 00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:41,360 pretty interesting. I think FTT is basically more rigid than most tokens in some ways. I think 139 00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:48,400 it's more economically underpinned than the average high, than the average who can why. 140 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:53,040 That being said, why do you feel that way? Wrong. 141 00:12:54,160 --> 00:12:59,200 Oh, it's like the buying burden. Like, you know, it's not just like it's looking at that, 142 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:02,640 like, does nothing. Like, you guys, it means he does something. 143 00:13:02,640 --> 00:13:09,120 Now I'm kind of speechless here. Sam seems to be suggesting that his token doesn't do nothing 144 00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:14,640 therefore is justifiably worth a billion dollars. This is despite the fact that he created it 145 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:20,720 from thin air and owned most of the tokens. It's just so insanely cynical. In my opinion, his real 146 00:13:20,720 --> 00:13:27,840 justification for its use case is only these buy and burns he did with the FTT token, which is just 147 00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:34,160 basically where FTX spent money to buy up a bunch of FTT tokens, which they owned most of. 148 00:13:34,240 --> 00:13:39,280 So it's literally arguing that pumping your own price makes a token valuable. I don't know. 149 00:13:39,280 --> 00:13:44,560 It's akin to saying my Ponzi's better than your Ponzi because I pump my own money back into 150 00:13:44,560 --> 00:13:49,440 it sometimes. I don't know. It's ridiculous. And it reminds me of a video we did six months ago 151 00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:55,040 where Sam described everything as a Ponzi scheme. Well, it seems fitting that he actually created 152 00:13:55,040 --> 00:14:00,000 his own token with similar Ponzi nomics with a few extra bells and whistles I suppose. 153 00:14:00,320 --> 00:14:05,520 Now, funny enough, after this long call spent dodging or being duplicitous about his 154 00:14:05,520 --> 00:14:12,080 responsibility of fraud here, Sam complained about reporters not being interested in the real story, 155 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:16,640 the boring story. And he said that he's tired of getting questioned about these 156 00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:22,640 provocative questions like his relationship issues. The problem is that at the end of the day, 157 00:14:22,640 --> 00:14:27,280 their metric is quick. Like that's what they need to get. I'm fine. It is what it is. But 158 00:14:27,280 --> 00:14:33,360 like what it means is that like a boring story won't sell. And so they're going to be trying to ask 159 00:14:33,360 --> 00:14:39,520 me like the most provocative possible questions. I kind of felt like I like we as a society 160 00:14:40,720 --> 00:14:48,560 have in my opinion my humble opinion spent about enough time this week trying to figure out 161 00:14:49,520 --> 00:14:56,880 whether anyone in living in helping with polyamorous. I found this answer really 162 00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:02,000 amusing since he's the one who's been dodging hard questions this entire time. And then says 163 00:15:02,000 --> 00:15:07,120 no one wants to hear the real story. And also then brings up his personal life and says, 164 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:12,160 why do people keep asking about my personal life? Like wait a second, you just brought that up. 165 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:16,880 So I find it really weird to be complaining about nobody wanting the real story and then not 166 00:15:16,880 --> 00:15:20,880 answering hard questions about back doors. And instead talking about your relationship, I just thought 167 00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:25,520 that was really funny. Now, so far it's been a lot of time talking about Sam's credibility or 168 00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:31,360 lack thereof. But to me, this all begs the question, what can we learn from Sam, who's so calculated, 169 00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:36,800 who's so intent on building this reputation or this image of himself? And he just isn't a reliable 170 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:43,120 narrator. And I think the only honest answer is that we can see how flawed and warped his reality 171 00:15:43,120 --> 00:15:48,560 really is. Because in Sam's world, he's still the good guy. He just made an honest mistake and 172 00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:52,880 embarrassing was to make sure, but in honest one, it's the lawyers who screwed him who want to burn 173 00:15:52,880 --> 00:15:57,520 things to the ground. He's standing on the sidelines with $4 billion that no one's seen, 174 00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:02,080 ready to put it all in to save everyone. If you only let him sell you his Ponzi tokens 175 00:16:02,080 --> 00:16:08,640 other way out, it'll all be fine. But we know the truth. Things are not fine at FTX. Reality has 176 00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:14,080 finally barged its way into the Bahamas and it's taking hold. So I want to wrap this up by speaking 177 00:16:14,080 --> 00:16:19,200 to the person who's responsible for this interview. Tiffany Fong. I wanted to ask how she even 178 00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:23,840 got this interview since so few people have been able to speak to Sam. I was surprised that he was 179 00:16:23,840 --> 00:16:29,680 willing to chat with me too. I'm not a traditional journalist or reporter. I literally only started 180 00:16:29,680 --> 00:16:35,520 posting about crypto at the end of June because I lost a lot of money to selfie his network. So I'm 181 00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:41,200 mostly started posting on Twitter and YouTube just to vent. But a few months into posting, selfie 182 00:16:41,200 --> 00:16:48,000 is employees started sending the leaked information, like leaked files and leaked audio. One of 183 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:53,520 which was a leaked internal all-hands meeting that I posted on September 13th to the public. 184 00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:57,760 And I think you actually briefly covered that in one of your videos. But Sam Bankman 185 00:16:57,760 --> 00:17:02,960 freed started following me that day. So we had a couple of free friendly exchanges on Twitter. 186 00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:08,800 A couple of them I think are actually public. So our DMs were already open when FTX filed for 187 00:17:08,800 --> 00:17:14,640 bankruptcy on November 11th. So I just figured I would shoot my shot and see if he'd be willing to 188 00:17:14,720 --> 00:17:22,000 chat with me. I really was not expecting a response from him. But a few days later on November 16th, 189 00:17:22,000 --> 00:17:27,840 he said he'd be happy to chat and he actually suggested a voice chat. So that's how all this came 190 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:33,520 about and it's all still kind of shocking to me as well. That's so crazy because basically you're 191 00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:38,000 one of the few people who got a call with Sam. I don't think you spoke into many other people. 192 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:42,480 Definitely no one else that I know of on audio. So I understand that you'll be releasing the 193 00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:48,400 full call yourself on your YouTube channel. But you know how long as this call, where can people 194 00:17:48,400 --> 00:17:53,760 learn more about you? The call should be about 20 minutes long. I did relax in the parts that he explicitly 195 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:59,440 told me not to repeat. But yeah, I'll post the call on my YouTube channel because I think that 196 00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:05,120 a lot gets lost on Twitter threads. So I think for sure. For sure guys be sure to go check out 197 00:18:05,120 --> 00:18:10,480 the full call on Tiffany's page. I'll link both of her Twitter and YouTube on in the description below. 198 00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,680 That's all for now. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in the next one.