Former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried, in a series of messages sent over Twitter on Friday, said he was “willing to testify” before the US House Financial Services Committee about the disintegration of his crypto empire.
Mr Bankman-Fried added that he would be limited in what he would be able to say because he did not have access to much of his data — “professional or personal”. He did not respond to requests for additional comment.
In tweets earlier this month, the House committee’s chairwoman, Maxine Waters, urged Mr Bankman-Fried to attend the December 13 hearing, saying his appearance was “imperative”.
Mr Bankman-Fried’s spokesman, Mark Botnick, said “details are still being worked out” and declined to comment further.
Representatives for the House panel did not return requests for comment.
The former FTX head missed the deadline set by the Senate Banking Committee for a response to a request to appear before its December 14 hearing.
His counsel did not reply in the needed time frame, the committee said on Thursday in a statement.
Mr Bankman-Fried, who has not been charged with any crimes, has denied trying to perpetrate fraud, though he has owned up to grievous managerial errors at FTX.
Bahamas-based FTX and more than 100 related entities, including the company’s US arm, filed for bankruptcy in November, sending shock waves across the crypto ecosystem.
The firm, which had been one of the world’s largest digital-asset exchanges, and its founder now face scrutiny from regulators and prosecutors in the US and overseas. The investigations could eventually lead to criminal charges.
At the centre of the investigations into the FTX implosion are questions about whether the firm mishandled customer funds by lending them out to the trading platform’s sister company, Alameda Research, to shore up risky bets.
