In an interview with Yahoo Finance on December 6, Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary called for calm after the FTX bankruptcy. The platform’s former CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, should be presumed innocent unless evidence comes to light that he has committed fraud, O’Leary said. Sam Bankman-Fried is popularly known as “SBF”.
O’Leary called for an audit of FTX to reveal where the exchange’s money went so investors can get their funds back.
The narrative on the @FTX_Official situation is quickly changing from “throw everyone in jail” to “where is my money?” Time for a forensic audit and some facts! pic.twitter.com/MdHy4Dqt5F
— Kevin O’Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) December 6, 2022
On November 30 and December 1, Bankman-Fried gave several interviews in which he stated that he was not guilty of fraud. This had provoked harsh criticism from the crypto community. But O’Leary defended Bankman-Fried in this new interview, saying she is “innocent until proven guilty.” He explained:
“I’m the type and group of people who say: you’re innocent until proven guilty. That’s what I believe. And I want the facts. And so, if you tell me you didn’t do it – you did or didn’t do something, I’m going to believe until I find out it’s a lie.”
O’Leary stated that due to Blockchain technology, all transactions on the platform “are 100% auditable,” and once such an audit is done, the truth about FTX will come out. So if someone broke the law, they will be arrested.
He argued that investors will be able to recover at least some of their money if an audit is carried out.
“We are going to recover that money”, said. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen. I’m not the only institution in this situation. We all want our road to recovery. We need a road to recovery, but we don’t have it.”
Before its bankruptcy, FTX was the second largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world by volume. But between November 2 and 11, a series of events prevented it from processing the withdrawals. It subsequently filed for bankruptcy, and billions of dollars of investor capital is now tied up in these bankruptcy proceedings. Bankruptcy records show that the company may have more than a million creditors, of which Kevin O’Leary is one.
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