In the eyes of Sam himself, he is so innocent

[DapanasFruit]

After so many details coming out of the FTX collapse, it is as clear as the sunshine that Sam and his minions committed many forms of fraud basically going against the very terms the company published...and am sure there will be more condemning evidences to look forward most especially if there are going to be cases against the man.

Now, in a very recent interview in New York Times per Forbes, Sam claimed that although he admitted to have failed in many aspects of the management of FTX he actually got no intention to defraud anybody - meaning he is as clean as white as far as allegations leveled against him while being the man at the helm of the company.

Who here think that Sam is just another victim of circumstances and not really the villain in this chaotic and far-reaching story of collapse?

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[Darker45]

It might not be his exact intention to defraud people but that's what he's actually doing. He might not really be thinking of taking people's money away, but that's basically what it means when he made huge withdrawals of his users' money and moved them to Alameda, donated to politicians, squandered on expensive properties in the Bahamas, gave away to his parents for them to splurge, lend to some companies, and so on.

Sam Bankman-Fried probably didn't think of running away with his users' money, but his irresponsibility, his childish financial management, is equally damaging. 

[bittraffic]

With the people behind him like the government officials, they can really put a picture of him being the victim and innocent when the media comes and paints him being the victim. How innocent can a man be while you see him eating cucumber on tv?

All it needs is another fall guy or the group of kids deciding for FTX who can take the blame.

[franky1]

i feel his mind was more on personal profits

where he thought he had the legal right to take funds and do as he pleases because there are no crypto laws stating that any hand over of funds to him comes with any fiduciary responsibility.

so he doesnt see it as fraud, but instead doing business.. where his customers by losing is just the customers cost of 'doing business' with him

[Zlantann]

Who here think that Sam is just another victim of circumstances and not really the villain in this chaotic and far-reaching story of collapse?

Most people that commits crime never accepts that they are guilty. Their lawyers would always argue or give reasons or the circumstances that necessitated the criminal offence. From the link OP provided Sam Bankman-Fried acknowledged that he made some mistakes but failed accept that he knew that is actions were risky or financially unsound. John Ray the new CEO of FTX has unveiled that the firm he was assign to rescue is in a total mess and past mangers failed to apply simple risk management principles. It is alarming to know that a multi-billion dollar firm like FTX don't have a risk management department. Which means that Sam, his friends and family had unlimited access to depositors funds and they used it the way they liked.

Most of these successful technological or crypto firms might have been founded by young entrepreneurs but it is important they employ experienced staff that are proficient in management practices, especially in investment and risk management.  
  

[tranthidung]

It might not be his exact intention to defraud people but that's what he's actually doing.

As an owner of a cryptocurrency exchange, with many trading types: Spot, Margin, Future and more, Sam Bankman-Fried should know very well about mechanisms to liquidate FTX users' collateral. That is not much different than mechanisms of forced liquidation on other exchanges and similar to bank liquidation too.

Sum up, he should know very well about extremely high risk of using FTT token as collateral for his company loan. He can not say he did not know about that risk and is innocent.

He might not really be thinking of taking people's money away, but that's basically what it means when he made huge withdrawals of his users' money and moved them to Alameda, donated to politicians, squandered on expensive properties in the Bahamas, gave away to his parents for them to splurge, lend to some companies, and so on.

Sam Bankman-Fried probably didn't think of running away with his users' money, but his irresponsibility, his childish financial management, is equally damaging. 

Think or not think to run away with customer money, it is not a matter.  A serious matter is he and his colleagues used customer money without any inform to them and any permission from their customers. That is enough to be called as guilty but worse they used such capital for their own benefits (buying expensive real estates, building up their reputation with politicians, etc.). All of these were not done for benefit of FTX customers at any scale.

[OgNasty]

It’s amazing how delusional he is. Saying he thinks FTXUS is solvent… I think he really believes what he was doing was honest and legitimate. It goes to show you that these kids can get handed everything in life, including their education while not knowing the basic business principles at the level of your average middle school pot dealer.

[Accardo]

Blames may not solve anything, he didn't blame himself for the billions of dollars lost through his exchange, he doesn't perceive it like we do. Think of Two Gun Crowley in Dale Carnegies' book, Despite being a murderer, in his letter he said: ‘Under my coat is a weary heart, but a kind one – one that would do nobody any harm.’ Even Al Capone didn't blame himself for disturbing Chicago. Therefore, SBF, has millions of reasons to prove he's not guilty. And blaming or condemning him won't help as he won't condemn himself. I'd say, until he is tried in the court of law for his carelessness SBF will always tell the world he's a good man who tried to save the cryptocurrency market.

[Hispo]

He had no intention to defraud anyone but at the same time he was mismanaging billions of dollars and donating millions of dollars to political parties? I do not buy it.

He is just delusional and probably a narcissistic person.
Actually, I am starting to see a pattern here among people like Sam, Do Kwon, the Faketoshi, etc. Narcissism, disregard for other's well-being and lack of the ability to accept their responsibility and lies.

I wish he gets imprisoned so does Do Kwon.

[franky1]

more recently
he done a live interview on youtube with NYT
10min highlight
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9hPQ_FZw7E

highlights -
he says FTX.US "has collateral to meet customer balances and could make those customers whole"
(which we all know funds shuffled after the bankrupcy filing to make that happen)

as for FTX international thats something else

(paraphrasing(not verbatim) watch whole video for full context)
interviewer: "it appears there was co-mingling of funds.. was there co-mingling of funds?"
scam b fraud:"i didnt knowingly co-mingle funds, one piece of this you have the margin trading, you have customers borrowing from each other, of which alemeda was one of them [customers]... i was surprised about how big alemedia position was, which points to another failure of oversight on my part, and a failure to appoint someone to be chiefly in charge of that. but i was not trying to co-mingle funds"

seems he is pointing the finger at his ex-GF[alemeda ceo] as the big customer funds taker but how she took customer funds "legally" by being a customer herself of ftx and used "margin calls" to grab customer funds into alemeda

he also blames the ftx funds /accounts discrepancy on alemeda[his ex-gf]

well she is in japan and not in us-bahama jurisdiction. so ofcourse he will take the blame off himself in 2 jurisdictions investigating him for prossible crimes

"it wasnt me officer"

anyway, full length >1hour video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyoGdwVIwWw

[Majestic-milf]

 He should tell himself some home truths; his actions, no matter how right he thinks they are, also put him in this situation! Even though he hasn't been proven guilty, his actions and conduct which led to FTX going underwater is capable of keeping him lol in prison for 20yrs. That's a lot for an "innocent man" if you ask me.
 Quoting him in an interview, he said; "I have a duty to explain what happened..I don't see what good is accomplished by me just sitting locked in a room pretending the outside world doesn't exist".. Will all this change the fact that that many investors funds have been carted away by some careless businessman? I doubt not.

[Ben Barubal]

After so many details coming out of the FTX collapse, it is as clear as the sunshine that Sam and his minions committed many forms of fraud basically going against the very terms the company published...and am sure there will be more condemning evidences to look forward most especially if there are going to be cases against the man.

Now, in a very recent interview in New York Times per Forbes, Sam claimed that although he admitted to have failed in many aspects of the management of FTX he actually got no intention to defraud anybody - meaning he is as clean as white as far as allegations leveled against him while being the man at the helm of the company.

Who here think that Sam is just another victim of circumstances and not really the villain in this chaotic and far-reaching story of collapse?

   When he said that, it is obvious that he is not telling the truth, it is also not true that he says that he has no intention of deceiving anyone and that in fact, he has managed to defraud many investors who have invested large amounts of money in Ftx.

   His interview with the New York Times was just used to show that he was innocent and did nothing wrong. In addition to this, I even watched Sam Bankman-Fried interview an interview with a well-known influencer, Tifanny Fong, who also revealed in the interview here that he is innocent and knows nothing about what happened in Ftx... Here it seems It also appears that he paid Tifanny Fong just from my own assessment, but I'm not sure, But that's what I had been thinking of it.

[slaman29]

I think he is not more evil than almost all of the guys working in corporate bodies and especially in crypto types.

He just happens to be the CEO.

His entire board were smoking and snorting marijuana and having sx with each other. Well not like that exactly lol but anyway none of them are clean is what I mean.

And his investors saw his pitches while he played video games and slept on couches. They all thought that made him cool and genius. So in the end he has a right to say "hey I was doing all this shit and you were cool, what did you think would happen??"

Bitcoin is so unsexy, but that's what I like about it.

[lovesmayfamilis]

Have you seen at least one criminal who would not say that he did not want anything bad? All of them are always white and fluffy, with angel wings behind their backs. But reality always says otherwise. Those who manage large amounts of money must always understand all the risks and be responsible for the funds that they have been entrusted with. All other justifications for loyalty and devotion to the cause are a desperate attempt to remove suspicion from yourself. Such people need to be very severely punished so that their history is an example for those who intend to engage in fraud.

[mindrust]

He exactly knows what he is doing. He greased the right people with the money he stole from his customers and now he is getting rewarded for this.

This is what happens when the corruption spreads everywhere in a country and this is happening right in front of our eyes in the United States which is the world’s most developed country, where people have rights, where law matters, or so they say.

This incident alone is enough to make the US an African country where people kill each other to steal their stuff.

[worle1bm]

So do you think he will come up with evil smile on his face laughing at all of us saying you were all innocent in believing what he said to all and took FTX to make money out of your pocket.Now he got busted he is seeking sympathy from all of us but that's not going to help him.His ponzi scheme crashed but he has his funds already separated out of which he will enjoy later and he is still innocent?

[mindrust]

He had no intention to defraud anyone but at the same time he was mismanaging billions of dollars and donating millions of dollars to political parties? I do not buy it.

He is just delusional and probably a narcissistic person.
Actually, I am starting to see a pattern here among people like Sam, Do Kwon, the Faketoshi, etc. Narcissism, disregard for other's well-being and lack of the ability to accept their responsibility and lies.

I wish he gets imprisoned so does Do Kwon.

“If you stole a hundred bucks, it is your problem. If you stole a billion dollars, it is the bank’s problem.”

This exactly what is happening here. Since he stole big, he will walk away because he can buy protection with the money he stole.

It seems to me everybody has a price nowadays.

Judges, police, politicians (especially)…

There are no honest people anymore.

It is happening in this forum too. Lots of people take the risk of promoting a scam casino just because they are getting paid...

[EarnOnVictor]

Innocent indeed, maybe he is being deceived by his look, not by his actions. Under any law (local and international), he is guilty, unless the articles I read and the documentaries I watched about him and his shady/fraudulent deals are all fake. He will surely serve his jail term unless the Bahamas government would compromise. This is highly unlikely as the US is so interested in the case and the Bahamas government would want to protect their internal image.

However, three of the likely charges are; Collecting money under false pretence, Misappropriating clients' money and Conspiracy.

[Sayeds56]

I don't think he is the victim of circumstances. As CEO,he is totally responsible for the collapse of FTX, he should have built up a strong protective system/mechanism to avert such huge crisis which not only deprived millions of investors from their lifetime savings but also created huge negativity of crypto which will continue hurting it for many months to come.

Let's wait for the outcome of investigation to know what went wrong and who was behind this crash.

[yazher]

It doesn't really work that way, he can say what he wants but the evidence will be the main thing that the judges will look upon and will gonna be judged according to it. There are already many versions of stories about what happened and we need to wrap this thing up as soon as possible so that we can move on and use this lesson for our own good in the future. That's just how it is, even though you don't have any intention to defraud anyone but when all the evidence will prove you wrong, you will end up in bad situations like others in jail.