EXCLUSIVE – sAm Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of FTX who faces jail time, had drinks and dinner with a top government regulator official at a posh Washington, D.C. restaurant with his FTX colleagues while lobbying for friendly regulations of the sector, show emails.
On October 5, 2021, Bankman-Fried, FTX General Counsel Ryne Miller and then FTX President Brett Harrison went to dinner at the upscale Indian restaurant Rasika West End with Dan Berkovitz, who at the time was Commissioner of the US Commodity. Futures Trading Commission, one of several agencies that regulate cryptocurrency, according to emails obtained by watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust and shared with the washington examiner🇧🇷
SAM BANKMAN-FRIED SAID FTX CRYPTO REGULATOR WAS ‘NATURAL CHOICE’ TO BE INDUSTRY ‘ARBITERS’, E-MAILS SHOW
It remains unclear what was discussed at the dinner, which took place while Bankman-Fried was lobbying the CFTC to change trading rules that would give FTX more freedom and power over the cryptocurrency world. The former CEO courted the CFTC to back a proposal that would allow FTX customers to borrow business money — which some officials reportedly secretly backed, though some regulators lamented it would destabilize markets.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during a Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry hearing in Washington, DC, USA, on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. Top Democrats and Republicans in Last month, the committee sent a letter to the CFTC asking the regulator to take a more active role in overseeing cryptocurrencies. Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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FTX lawyer Miller picked up the check at Rasika’s dinner and appears to have been later reimbursed to some extent by Berkovitz, according to the emails, which were released under the Freedom of Information Act and have not been reported until now. .
“Sam Bankman-Fried plans to be in DC this week,” Miller wrote to Berkovitz on October 3. time intervals, if that’s better.”
Later, when agreeing to a meeting at Rasika, Miller noted that other participants could be Zach Dexter, CEO of cryptocurrency firm Ledger X and former CEO of FTX, former CFTC Commissioner Mark Wetjen, who joined FTX as head of regulatory policy and strategy. , as well as Michelle Bond, CEO of the Association for Digital Assets Markets. It is unclear whether these individuals attended the dinner.
“They’re all nice and good for discussion. But you can keep them small if you prefer,” Miller wrote.
The average entry to Rasika is more than $25, and the restaurant offers a dinner wine list with bottles ranging from $45 to $450. appears to have paid the bill, asking only $50 from Berkovitz.
“Commissar,” wrote Miller to Berkovitz on 5 October. “Your dinner bill was $50. For Rasika West. You can send via Paypal to rvm228@nyu.edu.”
“Thanks, Ryne,” Berkovitz replied two days later, on 7 October. “I’m making the payment to PayPal now. Let me know if you don’t get it. Here’s a copy of the item I gave Sam. Enjoy!”
“Received and thanks for the article,” said Miller. “I wish you all the best on your new adventure.”
E-mails between Ryne Miller and Dan Berkovitz.
It is not clear which article Berkovitz was referring to. A receipt for the alleged PayPal transaction was also not included in the email.
“If ever there was a scene to evoke a vision of a DC rigged to corrupt infiltrators at the boy’s expense, this one would be hard to top,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, to the washington examiner🇧🇷 “Not long before its collapse and a series of fraud allegations, SBF and its gang were courting one of its would-be regulators, no doubt trying to manipulate the regulations in their favor.”
The emails are yet another window into Bankman-Fried and FTX’s once-friendly relationship with the US government. But that relationship has now been shattered amid the shocking stock market crash.
Bankman-Fried, once worth about $26.5 billion, is being charged by the Justice Department with money laundering and various types of fraud after FTX allegedly siphoned off billions of dollars in client funds to Alameda Research, a bankrupt cryptocurrency group that Bankman-Fried also founded. He faces up to 115 years in prison.
During trips to DC last year, Bankman-Fried frequently met with the CFTC, according to reports. The agency has been criticized for allegedly catering to the cryptocurrency industry and taking little action to enforce regulations that could protect investors from a volatile market.
On Dec. 13, the CFTC charged Bankman-Fried, FTX and Alameda with causing “the loss of more than $8 billion in FTX customer deposits,” according to a court filing.
Bankman-Fried sought to gain influence with CFTC and other agency officials so that FTX could become the “arbiter of the crypto industry,” the washington examiner reported based on an October 2021 email exchange between the former CEO of FTX and Berkovitz.
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“Apparently, if you speak the right rhetoric and throw millions in the right corners, you too can have a private dinner with the people who write the rules you must live by,” added Chamberlain.
FTX and CFTC did not respond to requests for comment.
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