US House Financial Services Chairwoman Maxine Waters Says it is ‘Imperative’ That Sam Bankman-Fried Attends Hearing on 13 December – This is What Happened

FTX Regulation Sam Bankman-Fried

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas

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Ruholamin Haqshanas is a contributing crypto writer for CryptoNews. He is a crypto and finance journalist with over four years of experience. Ruholamin has been featured in several high-profile crypto...

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June 26, 2023 06:55 EDT

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The Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters has demanded Sam Bankman-Fried participate in the upcoming U.S. House committee’s hearing and testify on the collapse of his crypto empire. 

In response to a tweet by Bankman-Fried that suggested he might not appear in the hearing, the Chairwoman insisted that it is part of his responsibility to show up, albeit using a less friendly tone.

“It is imperative that you attend our hearing on the 13th, and we are willing to schedule continued hearings if there is more information to be shared later,” Maxine said. 

As reported, SBF claimed yesterday that he is still not finished with “learning and reviewing what happened,” thus he might not be ready to participate in the hearing.

The statement came in response to a tweet by Current Chair and Congresswoman Maxine Waters and the committee that asked him to appear in the hearing on December 13 and talk about the collapse of FTX. 

However, Maxine argued that based on his role as the CEO of FTX and the “media interviews over the past few weeks, it’s clear to us that the information you have thus far is sufficient for testimony.” She added:

“As you know, the collapse of FTX has harmed over one million people. Your testimony would not only be meaningful to Members of Congress, but is also critical to the American people.”

In fact, SBF, who was initially very selective about his media presence, has recently started showing up in media more often. Just over the weekend, he appeared in two popular crypto podcasts, where he “got grilled” with some tough questions about the collapse of FTX — unveiling more dark truths about the CEO.

The US House Financial Services Committee announced last month that it plans to hold a hearing to investigate the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX. The committee said they expected to hear from the companies and individuals involved, including FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda Research, Binance, and more. 

At the time, Waters said that the collapse of FTX hurt over one million users, many of whom were retail traders who invested their “hard-earned” savings into the platform, only to watch it all disappear within a matter of seconds.

Meanwhile, Waters’ relatively strict approach comes as many in the crypto community have slammed lawmakers for their lack of seriousness in the FTX probe.

Will Manidis, cofounder and the CEO of ScienceIO, has even linked the behavior of regulators to the SBF donations. In a recent tweet, he said Bankman-Fried did “one of the highest ROI trades of all time” by donating $40 million and not going to jail for stealing over $10 billion in user funds.