[Feature] SBF: Poster Child of Cryptic Tweets, Pseudo Confessions, and More

The enigma that is Sam Bankman-Fried, ex-CEO of FTX, seems to have more than one moniker: former billionaire, disgraced crypto titan, ineffective effective altruist, ex-friendly face of crypto, the list goes on. He was once compared to titans of finance like Warren Buffett and John Pierpont Morgan, but in the wake of FTX’s collapse, his resignation, hacks, and more, he is now lumped with the likes of Three Arrows Capital’s (3AC) Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, as well as Terra’s Do Kwon, otherwise known as crypto villains.

His façade ─ whether real or not ─ of seemingly being always accessible, being a friend to journalists and crypto podcasters everywhere, being transparent and ever-disclosing, and affability, made him stand out from the rest prior to the FTX and Binance saga. In this world where everyone wears a mask and has one or more persona, his trustworthiness, openness, and unguardedness were indeed refreshing; it bolstered his image of someone without much to hide and he was like a regular Joe. However, that was a double-edged sword. With the end of the FTX versus Binance “war” as well as FTX’s meltdown, SBF’s inability to keep to himself has torn away much of the mystique from before. His incessant, unguarded tweeting and interviews did not come off as apologetic, reflective, somber, etc; he says or posts what he wants without actually giving much detail at all.

Many were incensed that he had the audacity to fill his Twitter with cryptic poetry references and casual conversations since people’s lives had been destroyed. Let us start with his cryptic Twitter thread from 14 to 17 November.

Twitter users were angered by what they thought was SBF mocking FTX’s collapse that left thousands of users with nothing in their FTX accounts, as well as not really comprehending the gravity of the situation. Some had a different take ─ they felt that the former CEO could be writing in code and attempted to decipher the tweets.

Logically, if one is under any kind of scrutiny for crimes, common sense is to speak of it as little as possible in case what you say implicates you. In the case of SBF, he has decided to do the exact opposite ─ with at least two interviews to journalists.

In the interview with The New York Times, he sounded surprisingly calm as he said, “You would’ve thought that I’d be getting no sleep right now, and instead I’m getting some. It could be worse.” He even went on to add that he had been spending recent days unwinding with video games.

In another interview with VOX which transpired on Twitter, a variety of topics were covered. After the interview was published, SBF tweeted that he thought it was off the record. You can see the “interview” exchange below (in no particular order):

Back in January 2021, SBF got into a public tiff with a crypto trader over Solana (SOL) ─he publicly antagonised a trader who was bearish on SOL’s prospects. See his tweet below along with the responses on 9 and 12 November 2022. But with the collapse of FTX and SBF, the tables have turned.

From using profanities to giving answers that does not address the question, beating around the bush, and more, SBF’s strange behaviour actually prompted some conspiracy theories. The most convincing one? He was posting new tweets while simultaneously deleting old ones so as to escape detection by bots that repost deleted tweets.

A journalist from Bloomberg that attended a conference in late September with SBF as one of the speakers in a session devoted to crypto, said, “My first observation was that he had ‘a constant jiggling knee issue, also an f-word issue’.” The journalist went on to explain that SBF gave a relatively unhelpful reply when the moderator asked him what the point was of crypto, saying, “The industry needs to get its sh** together.” When asked about his thoughts on when the crypto winter would end, he retorted, “Who the f*** knows?”

In short, no one does SBF better than the man himself. What will happen to this once bright crypto titan? Will he tweet himself to oblivion or will he make a comeback?