SBF's Parents Accept CNN Interview Claiming Customer Funds Were Not Lost, Advocate for SBF's Exoneration

Deep Tide TechFlow News, March 23 — According to CoinDesk, the parents of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, appeared on a CNN program for the first time to publicly question the conviction of their son. They stated that customer funds “have always existed” and, citing progress in FTX bankruptcy repayments, argued that SBF should be exonerated.

The FTX Bankruptcy Claims Trust will initiate its fourth distribution at the end of March, involving approximately $2.2 billion. The total recovered amount is expected to reach about $10 billion, with some creditor categories already recovering over 100%. Barbara Fried said that creditors have received principal plus interest ranging from 18% to 43%.

However, creditor representative Sunil Kavuri publicly countered these claims, pointing out that all payments were calculated based on asset values at the time of the bankruptcy filing in November 2022, converted to USD, rather than being paid out in physical assets or current market prices. For example, Bitcoin was valued at about $16,800 then, compared to approximately $69,000 now, meaning creditors received far less than the current market value.

SBF’s parents also characterized Alameda Research’s misappropriation of customer funds as routine lending operations, which is precisely what proposed legislation in Hong Kong, the European Union, and the United States explicitly prohibits. Additionally, the two publicly called for Trump to grant SBF a pardon, but Trump stated in January that he would not consider it. Currently, SBF’s appeal is still under review.