--- title: "Sam Bankman-Fried, Bored on House Arrest, Starts a Substack" description: "The rumors are true: Sam Bankman-Fried, currently on house arrest in California, has a Substack newsletter now. And according to him, nothing's his fault!" date: "2023-01-12" modified: "2023-01-12" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/sam-bankman-fried-substack" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Future Society" tags: - "crypto" - "cryptocurrency exchange" - "ftx" - "sam bankman-fried" --- # Sam Bankman-Fried, Bored on House Arrest, Starts a Substack ![The rumors are true: Sam Bankman-Fried, currently on house arrest in California, has a Substack newsletter now. And according to him, nothing's his fault!]() *\Image: Gotham via Getty / Futurism\* Sam Bankman-Fried, fallen crypto golden boy and former CEO of the imploded cryptocurrency exchange FTX, [simply cannot shut up](). Pre-arrest, he posted [long rants on Twitter](), and against all sane legal advice has gone on numerous talk shows, panels, and otherwise ill-advised outlets to say various versions of "I fucked up but definitely not criminally." Post-arrest, he's inexplicably chosen to continue the pattern — presumably to the dismay of SBF's current legal counsel, considering that his former lawyers jumped ship as a result of the ex-exec's "[incessant and disruptive tweeting]()." That said, it might be of no surprise to you to learn that the 29-year-old crypto founder — who after spending a few days in a [rat-infested Bahamian prison](), is now comfortably on house arrest at his [Stanford professor parents' house]() in California — has decided to take his unquiet-able mouth to a new platform: [Substack](). It's true. Presumably cooped up on a [beanbag chair]() somewhere in his childhood home, SBF decided that his next move should be to air his grievances on the popular newsletter platform — legally savvy, we're sure. And as for his first Substack's contents, its, uh, it's a lot. https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1613549233763717121?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1613549233763717121%7Ctwgr%5E66ebcdbb3964d048b3d00e7aa33181168420bfc8%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gawker.com%2Fmoney%2Fsam-bankman-fried-ftx-alameda-research-arrested-substack Well, it's a lot, but is also a bunch of stuff that he's already said on his apology tour. Using a lot of bullet points, Bankman-Fried once again tries to walk a fairly impossible line between self-deprecation while also blaming everything that went wrong on others, namely Changpeng "CZ" Zhao — Binance CEO and SBF frenemy who's widely credited with knocking down FTX's first domino by launching a sell-off of FTT, FTX's native crypto token — and those at the helm of the SBF-founded hedge fund Alameda Research, which Bankman-Fried has been very much trying to distance himself from since the crash. (Though he doesn't actually say her name, it's worth noting that Alameda was helmed by ex-CEO Caroline Ellison, [Tumblr queen]() and Bankman-Fried's rumored ex.) "Three things combined together to cause the implosion," he writes, listing: 1. Alameda's "balance sheet" and "net borrowing." 2. Alameda's "\[failure\] to sufficiently hedge its market exposure," and... 3. An "extreme, quick, targeted crash precipitated by the CEO of Binance," which ultimately "made Alameda insolvent." "Then came CZ's fateful tweet," he continued, referring to the [CZ tweet]() that launched a thousand FTT-selling ships, "following an extremely effective months-long PR campaign against FTX — and the crash." So, as you can see, SBF totally had nothing nothing nothing to do with it. Especially, as he writes, because he hasn't even "run Alameda for the past few years" — a claim that he repeats several times, in a number of ways, throughout his first foray into self-publishing. (Recent reporting [from *The Wall Street Journal*](), it's worth noting, paints a startlingly different picture of SBF's involvement with the hedge fund. From what they can tell, he still played a critical role in Alameda's day-to-day.) "No funds were stolen," SBF announced. "Alameda lost money due to a market crash it was not adequately hedged for — as Three Arrows and others have this year. And FTX was impacted, as Voyager and others were earlier." But SBF doesn't just have thoughts on what happened to *cause* the crash. He also has a lot to say about what happened *after* the crash — and rest assured, it's once again not his fault. It's apparently the fault of Sullivan & Cromwell, FTX's longtime lawyers, who were too eager to [push SBF out](). And actually, if he'd been allowed to remain as FTX's CEO, he could've found the several billions of dollars needed to make FTX International — which he carefully attempts to separate from the allegedly solvent FTX US — liquid and its customers whole. "If FTX had been given a few weeks to raise the necessary liquidity, I believe it would have been able to make customers substantially whole," Bankman-Fried wrote in the post. "I didn't realize at the time that Sullivan & Cromwell — via pressure to instate \[FTX's new CEO, John Jay Ray III\] and file Chapter 11, including for solvent companies like FTX US — would potentially quash those efforts." To be fair, it can [definitely be argued]() that Sullivan & Cromwell shouldn't be working on FTX's ongoing bankruptcy court case, considering that they made millions of dollars off the company *before* its collapse. Even so, the narrative that SBF seems so desperate to push — and perhaps even convince himself of — is incredibly convenient for someone who was literally in a group chat called "[wirefraud]()." And alas, in true SBF fashion, he's apparently not finished. "I have a lot more to say," he concluded, surprising us all, "about why Alameda failed to hedge, what happened with FTX US, what led to the Chapter 11 process, S&C, and more. But at least this is a start." (On that note, if we don't get SBF Substack Episode 2 in our inbox soon, we'll assume it's because his parents put him on time out from his devices.) **READ MORE:** *[Sam Bankman-Fried Starts a Substack]()* \[*Gawker*\] **More on SBF:** [*SBF and Caroline Ellison Allegedly Had a Secret Groupchat Called "Wirefraud"*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()