Bankman-Fried, the inventor of FTX, will appear before the United States House of Representatives.
Sam Bankman-Fried from FTX will appear before a U.S. House committee on Tuesday, according to the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange and a congressional panel, as officials look into his role in the exchange’s collapse.
Maxine Waters (NYSE:WAT), the chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, stated to Reuters on Thursday that she was ready to issue a subpoena to Bankman-Fried if he declined to show up for the hearing the committee is hosting as part of its investigation into FTX.
The panel said late on Friday that it would hear on Tuesday from Bankman-Fried, the founder and previous CEO of FTX, as well as John Ray, the newly appointed CEO of FTX.
Related: FTX spokesperson Kevin O’Leary revealed he received $15 million in compensation.
Bankman-Fried posted on Twitter on Friday, “I still do not have access to much of my data, professional or personal, so there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d want.”
However, he continued, “If the committee still believes it would be helpful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.”
The hybrid hearing is set to begin at 10:00 a.m. (ET; 1500 a.m. GMT) on Tuesday, according to the committee.
U.S. authorities have recently requested information from FTX investors and potential investors, according to two people familiar with the inquiries who spoke to Reuters. Bankman-Fried has not been accused of any crimes by the prosecution or the authorities.
U.S. According to Bloomberg late on Friday, Justice Department representatives met with FTX’s court-appointed overseers this week to discuss whether hundreds of millions of dollars were improperly transferred to the Bahamas, where FTX is based, around the same time that the cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy in Delaware.
Requests for comment on the article from Reuters were not immediately answered by FTX or the Justice Department.
Fighting ICO pioneers
Bankman-Fried left his position as CEO, and FTX filed for bankruptcy last month after traders withdrew $6 billion from the site in only three days and a competing exchange, Binance, abandoned a rescue plan.
The heated competition for market dominance in the months leading up to FTX’s demise between Bankman-Fried and Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, was covered in depth by Reuters last month.
Following a series of tweets by Zhao, friction between the two broke out in public once more on Friday.
Zhao claimed that Bankman-Fried launched “offensive tirades” against members of the Binance team when Binance, an early investor in FTX, tried to sell its interest more than one and a half years ago.
Related: FTX says that a former US president wants $6 million to start a cryptocurrency company.
Last year, Binance returned its investment in the business to FTX.
Bankman-Fried responded in writing, saying: “We started discussions about buying you out, and we chose to do it since it was crucial for our business.
If we didn’t contribute an additional $75 million, “you threatened to leave at the last minute,” he continued. “Many of the tokens and shares were still locked, so you didn’t even have the right to withdraw as an investor until we chose to buy you out.”
