Sam Bankman-Fried told crypto regulator FTX was ‘natural choice’ to be ‘umpires’ of industry, emails show
- December 16, 2022
Gabe Kaminsky, Washington Examiner
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former FTX CEO charged with fraud and money laundering, told a then-top official for a key financial regulator that FTX was destined to be the “umpires of the crypto industry,” emails show.
“Ryne, Thank you for the update and links,” Dan Berkovitz, who at the time was a commissioner for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of several agencies that regulate cryptocurrency, wrote in an Oct. 14, 2021, email to FTX lawyer Ryne Miller, Bankman-Fried, then-FTX President Brett Harrison, then-CFTC Commissioner Mark P. Wetjen, and Zach Dexter, CEO of the cryptocurrency company LedgerX.
“I was watching the Dodgers v. Giants the other night and saw that FTX is the Official Cryptocurrency Exchange of Major League Baseball (I gather this is not news). I’m not sure why MLB needs to have a cryptocurrency exchange, but glad to see that it has one that supports regulation!” Berkovitz continued in the email, which, along with others, was obtained by the watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust through the Freedom of Information Act and first shared with the Washington Examiner.