investigators and reporters want an answer to. were you incompetent or were you fraudulent? i didn t knowingly commit fraud, i don t think i committed fraud. i didn t want any of this to happen. i was certainly not nearly as competent as i thought i was. that is why we started ftx, to harness the possibility of this digital world. bankman fried s ftx was a giant of the crypto currency industry. the exchange allowed people to trade their normal money for digital tokens like bitcoin. but last month, it was revealed ftx and bankman fried s separate company, alameda research, were financially unstable. everything came crashing down, billions of dollars are now missing, more than a million people out of pocket. it is alleged that the alameda hedge fund was using ftx customer money that should have been secured. until very recently, this was the headquarters of a $32 billion ftx empire.
i made a lot of mistakes that are things i would give anything to be able to do over again. regardless of any apparent remorse, there is only really one question victims, investigators and reporters want an answer to. were you incompetent or were you fraudulent? i didn t knowingly commit fraud, i don t think i committed fraud. i didn t want any of this to happen. i was certainly not nearly as competent as i thought i was. bankman fried s ftx was a giant of the crypto currency industry. the exchange allowed people to trade their normal money for digital tokens like bitcoin. but last month, it was revealed ftx and bankman fried s separate company, alameda research, were financially unstable. everything came crashing down, billions of dollars are now missing, more than a million people out of pocket. it is alleged that the alameda hedge fund was using ftx customer money that
are things i would give anything to be able to do over again. regardless of any apparent remorse, there is only really one question victims, investigators and reporters want an answer to. were you incompetent or were you fraudulent? i didn t knowingly commit fraud. i don t think i committed fraud. i didn t want any of this to happen. i was certainly not nearly as competent as i thought i was. that is why we started ftx, to harness the possibility of this digital asset world. bankman fried s ftx was a giant of the crypto currency industry. the exchange allowed people to trade their normal money for digital tokens like bitcoin. but last month, it was revealed ftx and bankman fried s separate company, alameda research, were financially unstable. everything came crashing down, billions of dollars are now missing, more than a million people out of pocket. it is alleged that the alameda hedge fund was using ftx customer money that should have been secured.
last five election cycles. 2014, 80,000. 206, 80,000 2016. 2018, $1.5 million. 2020 the, $2 million. and then 0232 2022, 14.8 million. so, you know, with this kind of money being spent, it does seem impossible that it stayed on one side of the aisle. but might the ftx fiasco cause lawmakers now to really scrutinize lobbyists a bit better? well, certainly with regards to the cryptothe currency industry, i mean, sam bankman-fried, his firm also a spent millions of dollars, a big chunk from ptx lobbyists, and they were lobbying for regulations that were favorable specifically to the way ftx is doing business arthel: well, of course, that s what they do, right? [laughter] those sorts of proposed regulations are going to come under the microscope. the problem with the public trust in congress ability to do this is there aren t a lot of
intra-democratic contests to support whoever the pro-crypto democrat was in the primaries. so, obviously, there are a lot of questions about whether democrats right now as they remain mt. majority at least for the next couple of months can conduct credible oversight. i mean, for example, this house financial services committee hearing that s coming up is going to be chaired by congresswoman maxine waters who, you know, has been photographed with sam bankman-fried s arms around her. he has really worked to ingratiate himself with the committees of jurisdiction over the clip to currency industry. so while democrats in the media have tried to make the story of the collapse about this need for regulation in the cryptocurrency industry and that s certainly a big part of it, you know, they ve really tried to steer away from questions about how he was able to pull off a scam of this proportion. arthel: let s look at how much the crypto industry spent lobbying washington during the