According to Binance Chief Strategy Officer Patrick Hillman, Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly spread false or racist rumors about Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao prior to the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Sam Bankman-Fried Was Spreading FUD On 'CZ' Before Stock Market Crash
"Sam was constantly spreading false rumors about 'CZ' because portraying him as 'bad Chinese' was crucial to his scam. You can't act like Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader," Hillman tweeted.
Hillman was citing a recent story about the collapse of FTX, published in Puck magazine, written from the perspective of Anthony Scaramucci of hedge fund Skybridge Capital.
The story tells how SBF bought a $45 million stake in Skybridge and how Scaramucci invested $10 million of it in FTT, the native token of the bankrupt exchange.
FTX's collapse in November made this investment nearly worthless.
During SBF's talks with officials in Dubai, crypto king Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, the founder of Binance and rival of SBF.
Mooch had not attended these meetings, but his Skybridge colleague was there and had reported the misconduct to him.
SBF and CZ have long had a personal rivalry. At one point, while FTX was in trouble but still operating, Binance offered to bail out FTX with a $1 billion acquisition.
However, Binance backed out of the deal a day after doing due diligence on the company. “The issues are beyond our control or our ability to help,” Binance said at the time.
Hillman also denied on Twitter that the animosity between SBF and CZ caused Binance to back out of the bailout or divest FTT.
“It was the norm for us to have Sam disparaging CZ,” he said. “It had nothing to do with deciding to sell the worthless FTT on the company's books,” he stated.
*Not investment advice.