Image source: Lam Yik/Bloomberg
Sam Bankman-Fried isn’t done talking. Despite his conviction and ongoing prison time, the former FTX founder has released a 15-page document claiming that his crypto exchange was never actually insolvent — just misunderstood and mishandled after his departure.
The document, titled “FTX: Where Did the Money Go?” and dated September 30, has been circulating online this week. In it, Bankman-Fried argues that FTX “was never insolvent,” insisting that all customer assets were intact until lawyers and bankruptcy administrators took control in late 2022. He claims that their “incompetence and greed” wiped out tens of billions of dollars that could have gone back to users and investors.
Pointing Fingers at FTX’s New Management
Sam Bankman-Fried singles out John J. Ray III, the court-appointed CEO overseeing FTX’s bankruptcy, and the law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. He accuses them of “seizing control” of the exchange to enrich themselves, alleging they’ve billed nearly $1 billion in fees while delaying customer repayments for two years.
It’s not clear whether the document was written or released directly by Bankman-Fried from prison. However, it reads like his attempt to rewrite the FTX collapse story — portraying himself as a victim of poor management rather than the architect of one of crypto’s biggest downfalls.
According to him, the current repayment progress supports his case. Creditors are now expected to receive between 119% and 143% of their claim value. To Sam Bankman-Fried, this means FTX was never truly broke — if the bankruptcy team had “done nothing,” he claims, customers could have been repaid back in 2022, leaving “$111 billion” for investors.
The Numbers Don’t Add Up
Critics say the math doesn’t hold. His calculations rely on the current (2025) valuations of assets that FTX once held, like 58 million Solana tokens, a 7.8% stake in AI startup Anthropic, and hundreds of millions in FTT — FTX’s now-worthless native token. Applying today’s prices to 2022’s balance sheets paints a fantasy picture of a company worth $136 billion.
Bankruptcy experts have dismissed his reasoning as misleading. “Solvent but illiquid may sound clever,” one restructuring lawyer told Bloomberg Law, “but not when your collateral is yourself.”
Still Rewriting History
In his memo, Sam Bankman-Fried even suggests FTX could have reopened and repaid everyone by November 2022 if he had stayed in charge. In reality, the estate has recovered around $18 billion in assets against roughly $8 billion in claims — an impressive recovery, but hardly proof that the exchange was ever stable.
More than $900 million in legal and professional fees later, customers are finally seeing their funds return. Meanwhile, Sam Bankman-Fried continues to argue that he could have saved the ship.
If FTX was the Titanic, he was the captain who hit the iceberg — yet somehow still insists the voyage was smooth sailing.
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