Billionaire Dallas Maverick owner Mark Cuban recently offered his vision for the implosion of crypto platform FTX later this week.
“‘That’s a guy who runs a company that’s dumb-as-fucking selfish.’“
Cuban, speaking on Friday at a conference in Washington, DC hosted by the Sports Business Journal, shared the view that greed is the cause of the downfall of one-time crypto darling Sam Bankman-Fried, whose company FTX Group recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“So what did Sam Bankman do [Fried] do it, he just–’gimme more, gimme more, gimme more.’ So I would borrow money, lend it to a partner company and hope and pretend to myself that the FTT tokens sitting there in my balance should hold their value.
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The collapse of FTX marks a dramatic change for a company, which was once valued at $26 billion, and whose founder, Bankman-Fried is viewed by many in the crypto industry as a noble Wild West actor in digital exchanges.
On Thursday, the 30-year-old businessman tweeted: “I’m happy, and need to do better,” referring to the collapse of his exchange.
Embattled FTX, short billion dollars, is seeking bankruptcy protection after the exchange experienced the crypto equivalent of a bank run. FTX, an affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research, and several other related companies also filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on Friday morning. Boasting a fortune of nearly $16 billion recently, Sam Bankman Fried’s net worth has plummeted in the wake of the FTX implosion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The price of FTX’s native token FTT has fallen about 88.8% in the past seven days to $2.74, according to CoinMarketCap data.
The US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into crypto exchanges to determine if any criminal activity or securities violations have been committed.
Regulators are investigating whether FTX used customer deposits to fund Alameda Research bets, a no-no in traditional markets, according to reports.
Cuban, who is one of the stars of the investment show “Shark Tank” and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, is a big investor in crypto and blockchain-related platforms. According to a CNBC report, he said that 80% of his investments outside of Shark Tank are crypto-centric.
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For his part, Cuban is part of a class-action lawsuit accused of misleading investors in signing up for accounts at crypto platform Voyager Digital, which filed for bankruptcy in July. The lawsuit says Cuban expressed his support for Voyager and referred to it as “as close to risk-free as you can get in the crypto universe.”
Cuban discussed Voyager in his interview on Friday. Representatives for the billionaire investor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The owner of the Mavericks taken on Twitter on Saturday to say that crypto implosions are “banking blowups. Lending to the wrong entity, misvaluing collateral, arrogant arbs, followed by a depositor run.”
Cuban’s net worth is $4.6 billion, according to Forbes.
