Sam Bankman-Fried 'easy to pick out' as a fraud: CME Group chief Terry Duffy
Duffy said he previously predicted SBF could lose 85% of his value in a single day
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A top derivatives market executive told Fox News on Tuesday he previously tried to warn Congress and the financial sector that disgraced FTX billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was a "fraud."
CME Group CEO Terry Duffy, whose company comprises the merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange among other entities, told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Bankman-Fried's commercial behavior was full of red flags those in power missed or ignored.
Duffy derided Silicon Valley's Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna after Carlson played a clip of the two men sparring during a hearing over FTX, calling the exchange a prominent example of the warnings he tried to raise.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I appreciate you playing that piece [with] the genius from California telling me how crypto markets work and the difference between capital," the CME chief said.
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"What I was referring to is excess margin, which CME holds over $200 billion — where FTX was having regulatory capital, which is absolutely nothing," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Duffy added he similarly made clear to CME that Bankman-Fried's endeavors were not mainly focused on cryptocurrency but on having personal influence in various major markets.
"I said to my team, you know, this is not about crypto — this is about him trying to change the world so he can list every single product under the scam that he was trying to do with crypto," Duffy said.
"Crypto is so small, but if he could deploy his model in the U.S. Treasury market, in the U.S. agricultural market, can you imagine the damage this human being could have done to our country and the world?"
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Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, speaks during the Institute of International Finance (IIF) annual membership meeting in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2022. This year's conference theme is "The Search for Stability in an Era of Uncertainty, Realignment and Transformation." (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"And people literally, literally were turning a blind eye to it when you look at the people that were with him."
Duffy claimed a former executive of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CTFC) was closely aligned with Bankman-Fried, and that a former top congressional Republican was tied to him in a consulting-related manner.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Duffy later added that another premonition of his came true in regard to Bankman-Fried — and that it was not one he hoped would.
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and chief executive officer of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, during the Bloomberg Crypto Summit in New York, US, on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. The Bloomberg Crypto Summit brings together top names from the worlds of tokens, blockchain, Web3, NFTs, decentralized finance, economics, investing, venture capital, and more to talk about whats real and whats speculation, and what smart money should know about the next phases of growth in this ascendant industry. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"It's absolutely an embarrassment what went on here, and nobody bothered to look at it," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I said he could lose 85% of his value in a single day. Tucker, I said that in congressional testimony. I did not know how right I would be in such a short period of time."
"It was a completely fraught proposal, what he was doing. I knew he was a fraud the day I met him, and it was quite easy to pick out."