When the world realized the fraud Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) committed to building his FTX empire, fellow entrepreneurs, investors and long-time believers unanimously acknowledged the damage caused to the credibility of the crypto ecosystem. On the other hand, mainstream media — that predominantly attacked crypto via negative speculations — has seemingly taken sides with SBF while paying no heed to the losses exceeding billions of dollars incurred by the general public.
While SBF refuses to interact with Crypto Twitter, the same community he once called home, he featured in a New York Times (NYT) article on Nov. 14, trying to explain the sequence of events that led to the fall of the crypto exchange FTX. Surprisingly, the article’s tone did not resonate with the community, as many suspected a bias given SBF’s strong ties with United States politics.
As rightfully pointed out by Bloomberg journalist Trung Phan, the “puff piece on SBF” fails to mention the various frauds and crimes committed by the entrepreneur. Instead, the NYT chose to report an angle no one expected.
Word count NYT’s puff piece on SBF:
“Fraud”: 0
“Enron”: 0
“Crime”: 0
“Illiquid”: 0
“Stolen”: 0
“Hidden”: 0
“Criminal”: 0
“Back door”: 0
“He’s getting sleep”: 1 pic.twitter.com/htbte8IyPI— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) November 15, 2022
Crypto entrepreneurs, including Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt, angel investor Balaji Srinivasan and billionaire Elon Musk, openly criticized NYT for trying to change the narrative. Pointing out the obvious, Wyatt explained to the NYT author how SBF committed significant financial crimes, adding:
“It’s just a disservice to all of those impacted, and it’s disheartening to see all of this just skimmed over like he made a simple mistake.”
Srinivasan accused the New York Times of covering up the crimes committed by Sam Bankman-Fried. “Nothing SBF says can be trusted. Nothing NYT says can be trusted either,” said Srinivasan while asking Crypto Twitter to mass block the media outlet for spreading disinformation.
The talk of the town, Elon Musk, cemented the above accusations by asking a simple question on his recently-purchased social media platform:
“Why the puff piece @nytimes?”
At a time when entrepreneurs are trying to remediate the destruction caused to the crypto ecosystem, the community keeps a close on mainstream media’s attempt to change the narrative. It is important to note that other mainstream media outlets, such as CNBC, The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, have accurately reported on the wrongdoings of SBF.
Related: FTX collapse could see crypto sector layoffs accelerate
In a recent Ask Me Anything (AMA) session conducted on Nov. 14, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao asked investors to take responsibility for their investment decisions instead of purely blaming bad actors like FTX.
“As a user, you also have responsibility — you can’t just blame all of the responsibility to other people. When bad things happen, if you blame all of the responsibility, if it’s always to other people, you will never be successful,” CZ explained.
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