Less than a day after receiving a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence for his role in crypto exchange FTX’s historic 2022 collapse, Ryan Salame—a former lieutenant to Sam Bankman-Fried—followed in his ex-boss’ footsteps by blasting personal thoughts on the highly sensitive matter across Twitter.
“Sucks that if I had just sold off my pile of crypto like I was going to, instead of listening to multiple lawyers and borrowing from Alameda against it instead, I likely wouldn’t be going to prison for seven and [a] half years,” the former co-CEO of FTX’s Bahamas subsidiary wrote Wednesday morning.
Within hours of receiving an unexpectedly tough prison sentence yesterday—prosecutors had only requested five to seven years for the disgraced executive—Salame was actively posting on Twitter.
“Who should I do the first public interview with? Top vote wins,” he wrote.
When one Twitter user jokingly suggested he should sit down with the Department of Justice, Salame appeared to make light of his ordeal—responding that he had just received the results from that interview.
Had their interview results today already…
— Ryan Salame (@rsalame7926) May 28, 2024
Just weeks before FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s criminal trial began last fall, Salame pled guilty to violating campaign finance law and operating an unlicensed money transmitter business. Bankman-Fried, who pleaded not guilty to seven counts of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy, was subsequently found guilty and sentenced to 25 years in prison in March.
It’s unclear whether Salame would be in a much better position today had he navigated the FTX’s collapse differently. The bulk of the charges levied against the executive concerned the manner in which he helped operate FTX over a multi-year period—including illegally donating to political candidates at Bankman-Fried’s behest, in order to avoid federal disclosure requirements.
Decrypt reached out to Salame via his attorneys but did not immediately hear back. Salame is set to surrender for his prison sentence on August 29, per The New York Times.
The fallen crypto executive, once worth hundreds of millions of dollars, began tweeting immediately following his sentencing yesterday. That marked the first time Salame had posted on the social media site since FTX’s collapse in November 2022.
Among other comments, Salame wrote yesterday that he “had no idea” about a $55 million personal loan he received from FTX—a revelation that came during the exchange’s initial bankruptcy proceedings.
The 55m loan everyone keeps citing, I had no idea about it until after ftx collapsed. Not a dollar ever touched my account and the receiver had no clue I didn’t know about it. Fun thing to learn while my whole world was imploding.
— Ryan Salame (@rsalame7926) May 29, 2024
Salame did not address other financial actions he knowingly took amidst FTX’s collapse, however, including withdrawing over $5 million worth of crypto from the exchange just before it declared bankruptcy and shut down.
In response to Salame’s post, one Twitter user accused the executive of playing “the victim card.”
“I am not and would never be a victim,” Salame replied. “Just slowly going to share what really happened. Lots not public yet.”
Edited by Andrew Hayward
