Sam Bankman-Fried, who was arrested late Monday afternoon about a month after his $32B cryptocurrency empire imploded, reportedly planned to tell the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services that FTX US, the American division of FTX ( FTT-USD ), "remains solvent" even though it was a part of the November 11 bankruptcy . "To the best of my knowledge, FTX has been and remains solvent, and could pay off all of its customers in full tomorrow," according to draft of Bankman-Fried's testimony published by Forbes. "The Chapter 11 team has frozen the FTX US exchange, blocking customers' access to their account information and funds," he added. SBF censured the inclusion of FTX US in the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on John J. Ray III, a high-profile restructuring lawyer who succeeded SBF as FTX CEO after FTX filed for bankruptcy. “American customers were protected, at least until Mr. Ray’s team took over,” SBF said in the leaked testimony. Ray, who oversaw Enron's bankruptcy in 2001, condemned FTX's poor management practices under SBF's leadership, saying “never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here." The blame game went beyond Ray to include law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. SBF, who signed the bankruptcy documents, suggested that the firm pressured "me to quickly file for Chapter 11." SBF went on to say "I believe there is a credible path forward to put together billions of dollars of additional funds for FTX International customers," in a move that "would involve significant external financing, which in turn I believe would require the FTX exchange to restart operations." In an interview with BBC earlier this week, SBF said he's hoping to start a new venture in an attempt to repay FTX investors. Earlier, SEC charges SBF with defrauding investors and customers.
