Sam Bankman-Fried, former chief executive officer of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, seemed to point to the activities of his company’s brokerage arm as the reason his business collapsed, when he spoke at the New York Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday. 

In response to allegations client funds at FTX were siphoned off and used for crypto trading at Alameda Research, he said he “didn’t knowingly commingle funds.” 

Speaking by video link from the Bahamas, where the company was based, Bankman-Fried said: “I wasn’t running Alameda, I didn’t know exactly what [was] going on. I didn’t know the size of their position.”

He said he was nervous about getting too involved with Alameda because of conflict of interest, adding: “I was frankly surprised by how big Alameda’s position was, which points to another failure of oversight on my part.”

(By TIMMY SHEN)