Scaramucci remembers the “betrayal” of the SBF. “I considered him a friend”

Anthony Scaramucci detailed his close relationship with former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, his family, and how he feels about the extent of FTX’s collapse during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“I had a close relationship with [Sam Bankman-Fried]I considered him a friend,” Scaramucci said at Casper Labs’ Blockchain Hub event. “So I have to tell you that cheating and cheating are bad on many different levels. It certainly hurt my reputation.”

While getting to know Bankman-Fried, Scaramucci said he also met his father, who was a tenured professor at Stanford Law School and worked with Bankman-Fried’s aunt at the charity. He also recalled traveling to Miami with Bankman-Fried and Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, a former FTX spokesperson, to host the kids’ mockumentary Shark Tank.

“I felt close to him and close to his family,” she said.

Scaramucci, co-founder and managing partner of investment management firm SkyBridge Capital, told the audience that while he had previously been reluctant to accuse FTX of fraud, he now felt comfortable doing so.

“If anyone here has read the work of Dante Alighieri Hell, you know what the ninth circle of Hell is for,” Scaramucci said. “It’s for the betrayal of a friend who lives with the devil, the ninth circle of hell on a frozen lake,” he said.

Despite the dark imagery, Scaramucci said Bankman-Fried’s actions do not mean the end of blockchain or crypto.

“That’s why we have blockchain and crypto, because we’re trying to create a decentralized situation where we don’t have to like or trust each other,” he said. “We can make deals with each other in a way that basically sanctifies technology.”

“I’m not going to stop taking risks has addedsumming up the panel, which was titled:

On November 11, 2022, FTX and several of its subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy, just days after the bank had been trading its FTT token. The following month, Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas and extradited to the United States on eight counts of conspiracy.

Before her arrest, Bankman-Fried made several appearances, including an interview New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin at the 2022 Deal Book Summit against his lawyer’s wishes, during which he attempted to explain the situation and apologize.

“I thought Sam was the Mark Zuckerberg of crypto, I didn’t think he was the Bernie Madoff of crypto,” Scaramucci said. “I misunderstood.”

Before the collapse of FTX, Bankman-Fried offered bailouts to several crypto companies as the crypto winter of 2022 dragged on. “The reason I’ve been doing it, frankly, is because it’s not clear to me that there are others who are going forward and doing this,” Bankman-Fried said in an interview. Decode GM Podcast:

In September 2022, two months before FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, FTX Ventures bought a 30% stake in Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital for about $45 million. At the time, Scaramucci’s tone was kinder to the former billionaire, who now faces life in prison if convicted on all charges.

“Sam is a visionary who has built incredible businesses that are synergistic with the future of SkyBridge,” Scaramucci said at the time..