A fake news story spread on the internet suggested that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele was requesting the immediate extradition of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, along with Alameda Research co-CEO Sam Trabucco, to answer for losing the Bitcoin of the Salvadoran people.
The CEO of Binance, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao took to his Twitter account to clarify these rumors, sharing that “the amount of misinformation out there right now is crazy.” and that he “exchanged messages with President Nayib recently.” He said that Chairman Buckele told him that “we don’t have any Bitcoin on FTX and have never done any business with them. Thank God.”
Man, the amount of misinformation is insane.
I exchanged messages with President Nayib a few moments ago. He said “we don’t have any Bitcoin in FTX and we never had any business with them. Thank God!” https://t.co/CrM5wd24Ha
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) November 10, 2022
the billionaire Mike Novogratz, who spread the misinformation in an interview with CNBC in a video that has since been deleted, used his Twitter account to offer an apology to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and the Salvadoran people by sharing: “I fell for the ‘fake news’ and although I mentioned that I had not confirmed it, I should have done it.” Novogratz thanked Binance’s CZ for “pointing it out.”
Apologies to @nayibbukele and the people of El Salvador. I fell for ‘fake news’ and while I mentioned I hadn’t confirmed it, I should have.
thanks @cz_binance for pointing it out.
I am a huge fan of what you are doing in El Salvador.
— Mike Novogratz (@novogratz) November 10, 2022
Since 2021, El Salvador would have bought 2,301 BTC for about USD 103.9 million. The Salvadoran government has said that it believes that BTC is a powerful tool to attract foreign investment, create new jobs and reduce dependence on the US dollar. President Bukele previously mentioned that the main objective of the recognition of BTC was to offer financial services to more than 80% of unbanked Salvadorans.
In the aftermath of FTX’s insolvency problems, rumors began to circulate on the Internet that the Central American country El Salvador, which made history in 2021 by making Bitcoin legal tender, was in financial trouble because it had a part or all of your Bitcoin holdings stored in FTX.
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