--- title: "Sam Bankman-Fried Posts Excel Docs That He Says Shows Nothing Was His Fault" description: "According to Substack author Sam Bankman-Fried's excel docs — delivered by way of newsletter — FTX US is solvent. The new FTX CEO says otherwise." date: "2023-01-24" modified: "2023-01-24" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/sam-bankman-fried-excel-docs" categories: - "Blockchain" - "Cryptocurrency" - "Future Society" tags: - "crypto" - "ftx" - "sam bankman-fried" - "the digest" --- # Sam Bankman-Fried Posts Excel Docs That He Says Shows Nothing Was His Fault ![According to Substack author Sam Bankman-Fried's excel docs — delivered by way of newsletter — FTX US is solvent. The new FTX CEO says otherwise.]() *\Image: Gotham via Getty / Futurism\* ## Episode Two In case you missed it, newly-minted [Substack author]() Sam Bankman-Fried was back on the blogging grind last week. This time, he laid even further into his bankrupt exchange's longtime lawyers, the New York City-based firm Sullivan & Cromwell — meanwhile, of course, once again insisting that he's [totally innocent]() and (the again, bankrupt) FTX is still completely solvent, actually! "These claims by S&C are wrong, and contradicted by data later on in the same document," Bankman-Fried wrote on his blog. "FTX US was and is solvent, likely with hundreds of millions of dollars in excess of customer balances." As for why you should trust him? He's got Excel spreadsheets. ## Honey Pot While the graphs, bullet points, and Excel sheets that SBF offers as evidence are a bit disorienting, his argument seems pretty simple. He alleges that Sullivan & Cromwell are providing misleading numbers regarding customer funds, somehow failing to account for an apparent "$428m of cash in bank accounts" that exists outside of the millions that were kept in digital assets. "One way or another," SBF wrote, "their data actually confirms that FTX US was extremely likely to be solvent when I handed it off." Of course, SBF's spreadsheets — which he's apparently been putting together at his parents' house, where he's currently on [house arrest]() — aren't exactly official documents, so this is very much a he-said, the-government-slash-FTX-lawyers-slash-new-FTX-CEO-said situation. And we'd like to hope that the SEC also understands how to use and read Excel sheets, and has done so in the process of charging SBF with [criminal wrongdoing](). (That said, it's also [been alleged]() that while SBF was in charge, FTX's accounting practices weren't exactly rock solid.) Speaking of the company's new leadership, it's also worth noting that the company's current CEO, John J. Ray III, has responded to Bankman-Fried's Excel Files, explaining that Bankman-Fried's analysis would, in short, "imply covering losses at the US exchange through money that belongs to other customers," [according to *The Wall Street Journal*](). "This is the problem," Ray told the paper. "He thinks everything is one big honey pot." Bankman-Fried, of course, has refuted that characterization, both to the *WSJ* and on Twitter. And as he's always got more to say, we're sure a separate rebuttal will be in subscriber inboxes pretty soon. **READ MORE:** [*New FTX Chief Says Crypto Exchange Could Restart*]() \[*The Wall Street Journal*\] **More on crypto:** *[Influential Economist Tells Davos Elites That Crypto Is a Complete Scam]()* ## 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]()