Sam Bankman-Fried Posts Cryptic Tweet Thread – Has He Been Hacked?

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October 23, 2023

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A strange Twitter thread from FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried is raising eyebrows in the community, with some now wondering if his Twitter account has been hacked. But according to Bankman-Fried himself, he’s just “improvising.”

The thread from the former FTX boss, known in crypto circles simply as SBF, spelt out, “What H A P P E N E D,” with a final tweet at the end adding:

“[NOT LEGAL ADVICE.  NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE.  THIS IS ALL AS I REMEMBER IT, BUT MY MEMORY MIGHT BE FAULTY IN PARTS.]”

The 10-tweet thread was posted over the course of about 24 hours, with the first tweet posted on Monday at 3 am UTC and the last tweet on Tuesday at 5:30 am UTC.

10) [NOT LEGAL ADVICE. NOT FINANCIAL ADVICE. THIS IS ALL AS I REMEMBER IT, BUT MY MEMORY MIGHT BE FAULTY IN PARTS.]— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 15, 2022

The thread has already received replies from many members of the crypto community, with some attempting to explain why the tweets were posted at with so much time between and what it all meant.

Eric Wall, a popular Twitter user and crypto investor, at first tweeted out that the reason for SBF’s unusual tweeting could be that he was trying to fool bots tracking his tweeting and that SBF was, in fact, deleting potentially incriminating tweets while he was adding new ones.

However, Wall later admitted that the theory appears to be wrong, saying the deletions detected “seem to be coming from *other* people deleting their tweets that Sam has previously retweeted.”

– FALSE POSITIVES –

Deletions seem to be coming from *other* people deleting their tweets that Sam has previously retweeted

– MY BAD EVERYONE. VERY SORRY – https://t.co/bgLV3BKrqj

— Eric Wall | BIP-420😺 (@ercwl) November 15, 2022

Community reacts

The cryptic tweets also received replies from a number of other prominent members of the crypto community.

Su Zhu, the co-founder of the now-bankrupt crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital who, since the collapse of his fund, has been largely absent from Twitter, simply replied “sup:”

sup

— 朱溯 🐂 (@zhusu) November 14, 2022

Autism Capital, another popular crypto Twitter account, also offered its take:

Is Sam pretending to have a schizophrenic break?

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) November 15, 2022

Unfortunately, this “isn’t how the insanity defense works,” said the crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky:

Not legal advice but this isn't how the insanity defense works.

— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) November 15, 2022

SBF: “I’m improvising”

In an interview with the New York Times published on Monday, Bankman-Fried was asked about the cryptic tweets. However, for unknown reasons, the former exchange boss didn’t do much to clarify:

“It’s going to be more than one word […] I’m making it up as I go,” SBF said while adding, “I don’t know” and “I’m improvising. I think it’s time,” when asked why he was posting the cryptic tweets.