On the finish of a fifteen,000-word Twitter thread he by no means posted, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founding father of the failed cryptocurrency alternate FTX, presented a blunt evaluation of his dilemma.
“I’m broke and dressed in an ankle observe and some of the hated other people on the planet,” he wrote. “There’ll most likely by no means be the rest I will be able to do to make my lifetime have an effect on internet certain.”
He added: “And actually that I did what I assumed used to be proper.”
After Mr. Bankman-Fried used to be arrested, charged with fraud over FTX’s cave in and positioned in house detention in December, he wrote masses of pages of once in a while rambling self-justifications, starting from adolescence recollections to mathematical calculations.
In a draft of his unsent posts, which he formatted as a chain of tweets spanning kind of 70 typed pages, he criticized a few of his closest colleagues, interspersing his arguments with pictures from his highschool years and inventory pictures of popcorn and a lawn maze. Each and every few pages, a key second within the narrative is accompanied with a hyperlink to a song video by way of Alicia Keys, Katy Perry or Rihanna.
As soon as a prolific poster on Twitter, now referred to as X, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, classified the thread “a draft of a draft of a draft of an concept” and integrated hyperlinks to 29 different recordsdata about FTX. One file, titled “Inception V2,” is a long assault at the corporate’s chapter legal professionals, that includes a screenshot from the 2010 Christopher Nolan film. A separate hyperlink pulls up a spreadsheet record Mr. Bankman-Fried’s Amazon orders from 2021.
The kind of 250 pages of paperwork, that have now not been up to now reported, supply a window into Mr. Bankman-Fried’s way of thinking all over the 8 months he spent in house detention earlier than a pass judgement on revoked his bail in August. The writings additionally be offering new information about his conceivable criminal protection past what his legal professionals have published in court docket, dropping mild on how he would possibly justify his movements when his trial begins on Oct. 3.
Prosecutors have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with orchestrating a scheme to funnel FTX buyer price range to a hedge fund he based, Alameda Analysis, in order that his corporations may make undertaking capital investments, purchase actual property and donate to politicians. He has pleaded now not accountable and faces many years in jail if convicted.
Throughout his area arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried despatched the paperwork to Tiffany Fong, a social media influencer who has a YouTube channel in regards to the crypto business. Ms. Fong shared them with The New York Occasions.
“He favored that I don’t paintings for any one,” she mentioned. “He thinks I will be able to simply form of come to my very own conclusions.”
A consultant for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to remark.
In different paperwork, Mr. Bankman-Fried blamed Caroline Ellison, his former female friend and onetime lieutenant, for serving to to reason FTX’s implosion. He described her as sick supplied for the task he gave her as head of Alameda, claiming she had cried all over a gathering with him and refused to institute buying and selling methods that may have safe his companies from a marketplace crash.
“She frequently have shyed away from speaking about possibility control — dodging my ideas — till it used to be too past due,” he wrote in a file titled “Alameda’s Failure to Hedge.” “Each and every time that I reached out with ideas, it simply made her really feel worse. I’m certain that being exes didn’t assist.”
Within the Twitter draft, Mr. Bankman-Fried additionally criticized Sam Trabucco, who used to be co-chief govt of Alameda. Mr. Trabucco and Ms. Ellison didn’t get alongside, the file mentioned. And whilst Mr. Trabucco had just right instincts for possibility control, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote, he “used to be within the means of quiet quitting” by way of past due 2021.
Mr. Trabucco most popular to spend his time “happening dates with a ton of fellows whilst crusing world wide on a ship,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote. Then he related to a song video, “Cheers (Drink to That)” by way of Rihanna.
Ms. Ellison and two of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s different best advisers have pleaded accountable to fraud fees and agreed to testify towards him. A fourth pleaded accountable this month with out promising to cooperate. Mr. Trabucco has now not been charged with any wrongdoing.
Attorneys for Mr. Trabucco and Ms. Ellison declined to remark.
As soon as hailed as a devoted drive within the loosely regulated global of crypto, FTX imploded in November, costing consumers billions of greenbacks and devastating the business. After his arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried used to be granted bail and allowed to are living together with his oldsters, who’re longtime regulation professors at Stanford, of their house in Palo Alto, Calif. They were given a German shepherd named Sandor to behave as his guard canine.
For months, Mr. Bankman-Fried entertained visitors just like the creator Michael Lewis, who’s completing a e book about him, in addition to a number of newshounds.
Few other people had as a lot get admission to as Ms. Fong, the influencer, who had struck up a web-based rapport with Mr. Bankman-Fried earlier than FTX failed. Ms. Fong visited him at his oldsters’ house greater than 10 instances, she mentioned, and recorded conversations with him that she would possibly ultimately unlock.
Throughout area arrest, Mr. Bankman-Fried spent a lot of his time within the learn about, Ms. Fong mentioned, the place he performed laptop video games, arrange a chessboard and once in a while slept at the sofa. Maximum days, she mentioned, he labored on his criminal protection, recording ideas in regards to the case on masses of pages of Google paperwork. Mr. Bankman-Fried additionally advised her that his circle of relatives used to be putting in a pickleball court docket for him within the backyard.
Mr. Bankman-Fried gave Ms. Fong the paperwork in past due January. It used to be now not transparent what he anticipated her to do with them. Ms. Fong, who misplaced cash within the cave in of the crypto corporate Celsius Community, mentioned she sympathized with FTX’s sufferers and used to be skeptical of a lot of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s claims. She despatched one file to a former Alameda engineer, Aditya Baradwaj, who replied to her with a point-by-point rebuttal to Mr. Bankman-Fried, noting that Alameda’s hedging would were “inappropriate” if FTX hadn’t misused buyer cash.
Within the draft Twitter thread, Mr. Bankman-Fried traced the expansion of his companies from his adolescence in Palo Alto to the penthouse he purchased within the Bahamas close to FTX’s headquarters. He recalled assembly Mr. Trabucco at a math camp, the place his long term colleague sneaked out after curfew to bake cheesecake brownies, and he described his early admiration for Ms. Ellison, calling her “depraved sensible.” He additionally inserted some private pictures, together with one who displays him retaining a blouse that Mr. Trabucco had purchased him in highschool.
In every other segment, Mr. Bankman-Fried posted a hyperlink to a file he wrote in 2019, “This night We Are Younger,” an account of a convention in Taiwan the place he interacted with Changpeng Zhao, referred to as CZ, the founding father of the Binance crypto alternate. (He additionally integrated a hyperlink to the “We Are Younger” song video by way of Amusing.)
“This night used to be an evening about booze and girls and lasers and loud, booming song, however there used to be an abnormal microclimate that gave the impression to practice me,” Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote. “I walked by way of CZ a couple of extra instances, and each and every time he broke eye touch together with his eye sweet and embraced me: Folks have been eager about us, so much.”
In November, Mr. Zhao’s posts prompt a run on deposits that helped suggested FTX’s implosion. A Binance consultant didn’t reply to a request for remark.
A few of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s paperwork elaborate on arguments that his legal professionals have made in court docket. In recordsdata titled “Inception V2,” “Inception V3” and “Inception Proof,” Mr. Bankman-Fried claimed that Sullivan & Cromwell, the regulation company overseeing FTX’s chapter, built the narrative that he misappropriated consumer price range.
“They’ve performed it extremely smartly,” he wrote. “Have been it now not damaging to with regards to the whole thing I care about in existence, I’d tip my cap to them.”
A Sullivan & Cromwell spokesman declined to remark. Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Bankman-Fried’s claims in regards to the company quantity to “innuendo.”
Throughout a number of paperwork, Mr. Bankman-Fried additionally dissected his historical past with Ms. Ellison, writing that their courting ended “the similar means maximum of my relationships finish.”
“They would like extra intimacy and dedication and public visibility than I do,” he wrote within the thread, “and I think claustrophobic.”
In every other file, he mentioned Ms. Ellison had refused to hedge Alameda’s competitive buying and selling technique, in spite of his urging. At one level, he recalled, he despatched her a message that amounted to “the meanest factor I’ve ever mentioned to her.” (He mentioned he not had a report of the message.)
“If Alameda had hedged, it could have remained solvent and avoided all of the unsatisfied tale,” he wrote.
His issues about Alameda heightened in spring 2022 as he packed for a go back and forth to Washington, Mr. Bankman-Fried wrote within the Twitter draft. A gaggle of staff together with Ms. Ellison used to be frantically discussing a conceivable deficit within the company’s accounts. Mr. Bankman-Fried used to be most effective half-engaged, he wrote, however had heard sufficient to understand that the dialog targeted on an account classified fiat@ — the automobile that regulators have mentioned FTX executives used to redirect buyer price range into different tasks.
“I had heard that title earlier than, however I’d by no means truly identified precisely what it used to be,” he wrote.
When she pleaded accountable, Ms. Ellison mentioned she and Mr. Bankman-Fried had conspired to shore up Alameda’s funds with buyer cash. He has denied misusing the price range.
“As a basic subject, I don’t lie,” he wrote in a file titled “Fact.” “It’s one thing that I consider rather strongly in.”
