Former FTX CEO accused of spreading rumors about Binance CEO
According to Patrick Hillmann, such a strategy was part of Sam Bankman-Fried’s scam scheme
21.04.2023 - 16:20
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What’s new? Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried spread rumors about Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao before the collapseof his trading platform last November. With this statement, Binance Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillmann commented on an article by Puck, in which Anthony Scaramucci, founder of investment firm SkyBridge Capital, tells the story of FTX bankruptcy. According to Hillmann, the notion of Zhao “as an “evil Chinese” was critical to his [Bankman-Fried’s] scam.”
A great read by @WilliamCohan at @PuckNews. One thing they missed, Sam was CONSTANTLY spreading fake rumors about @cz_binance, because shading him as an "evil Chinese" was critical to his scam. You can't pretend to be Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader.https://t.co/oi9JxsqPyz
— Patrick Hillmann (@PRHillmann) April 20, 2023
Details of the situation. According to Scaramucci, SkyBridge received $45 million in financing from Bankman-Fried before FTX collapsed. The company used the money to buy $10 million worth of exchange tokens FTT and sold them at a loss of $9,6 million.
The head of SkyBridge also said that Bankman-Fried spread gossip about Zhao during meetings with officials in Dubai. Scaramucci admitted that information about the former FTX CEO’s remarks reached the CEO of Binance. That, in turn, led to Zhao’s decision to sell $500 million worth of FTT tokens owned by Binance.
Hillmann denied Scaramucci’s speculation about the token sale but confirmed that Binance was aware of Bankman-Fried’s rumor-mongering about Zhao. He also believes the attempt to put Zhao in a negative light was part of the FTX founder’s strategy to implement a scam scheme.
“You can’t pretend to be Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader,” Hillmann remarked.
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Zhao had previously called Bankman-Fried “one of the greatest fraudsters in history” and accused him of trying to manipulate public opinion through the media. These statements were made even before the US authorities charged the FTX founder with multimillion-dollar fraud.
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