Jesse Powell. Source: Bloomberg
The past few days were unnerving as the crypto industry watched the fall of FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
With FTX now insolvent, some of the biggest and oldest players in the space have started expressing disappointment at the company’s CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), popularly known as crypto’s white knight.
One such person is Jesse Powell, co-founder and former CEO of crypto exchange Kraken, who has taken to Twitter to blast SBF, listing some of his deeds and describing them as red flags.
In a 14-tweet-long thread, Powell expressed his anger about the outcome of the FTX saga and its effect on the broader crypto market.
The Kraken co-founder argued that the crypto community’s good and trusting nature has made it an easy target for con artists, who clearly state that they have come for profits and not for the asset class, and instead of shutting them out, they are praised for their honesty.
Powell further explained that the FTX issue is not a case of aiming high and missing but of greed, self-interest, and sociopathic behavior that risks the industry’s “hard-won progress” over the years.
He claimed that SBF showed up to the crypto industry after eight years and acted like he knew everything while “being a ‘media darling’ and seeking out puff pieces.” He gave a list of Bankman-Fried’s most popular deeds, which include nine-figure sports deals, calling them “huge ego purchases.”
Recall that FTX signed several sports deals worth millions of dollars last year. Between March and October, the firm bagged a $135 million naming-rights deal for the Miami Heat Arena, $17.5 million deal with Cal Athletics, and a $5.6 million Super Bowl ad deal, amongst others.
Powell also cited SBF’s massive donations to American politicians, mainly to the Democratic party and its candidates. He also said the now-ex-billionaire was overly eager to please Washington, D.C., and was “EA virtue signaling.”
Meanwhile, in a recent interview with Bloomberg, Powell revealed that his exchange had no exposure to the tumbling FTX token (FTT).
“We steered clear of the FTT token. We don’t trade it on the spot exchange, or the futures exchange, so we’re in the clear on this one, fortunately,” he said.