What Happened: Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried claims that information shared by Sullivan & Cromwell (S&C) about a shortfall of funds at FTX US is inherently false.

S&C said it had identified only $181 million worth of digital assets on FTX US at the time it filed for bankruptcy. Bankman-Fried claims that the firm failed to account for $428 million that was supposedly in FTX US’s bank accounts.

“These claims by S&C are wrong, and contradicted by data later on in the same document. FTX US was and is solvent, likely with hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of customer balances,” wrote Bankman-Fried in yet another Substack post. 

The proof: Bankman-Fried’s own personal records, which appears to be an Excel spreadsheet documenting the state of FTX US’s balance sheet.

Momentarily putting aside the fact that he once claimed he had restricted access to data, the FTX founder shared his own calculations that seemingly show that S&C understated the exchange’s customer balances, bank balances and Net Asset Value.

He reiterated that FTX US is solvent and “customers should be given access to their funds,” based on his estimates that the firm had around $400 million of excess cash on top of what is required to meet customer balances.

Does anyone believe him? Not really. The FTX founder’s claims have largely been met with sarcastic responses from the crypto community. Unsurprisingly, turning off replies to his Twitter post did not stop users from sharing their thoughts on the spreadsheet accompanying his blog.

https://twitter.com/wagyuh0td0g/status/1615534616596697095

 “Look mom I can put numbers in a spreadsheet,” tweeted one user.

“This formatting should carry a minimum 5 year sentence,” commented another.

Why is he still tweeting? Like other once-respected industry leaders that have fallen from grace, Bankman-Fried has not shied away from sharing his thoughts on various events leading up to FTX’s collapse, denying culpability for it on several occasions.

It remains to be seen what the consequences of these statements, and the figures he presented in the spreadsheet, will be in the legal case against him.

However, with his bail conditions bearing no restrictions on access to the internet, there’s no reason to believe that Bankman-Fried’s second post on Substack will be his last.