Key Highlights:
- Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) posted on X today, March 13, 2026 and claimed that FTX had enough liquidity at the time of collapse.
- In the X post, SBF attached court filings and analysis by Pimbley supporting the data.
- Critics slam the claims as excuses for diverting funds to Alameda.
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the fallen crypto king behind FTX’s 2022 collapse, made a very strong claim through an X post today, March 13, 2026. In the X post, he stated that his exchange always had the money to pay customers, and challenged the fraud narrative that has kept him behind the bars.
SBF’s Tweet Sparks Debate
Along with his claims, the former CEO of FTX argued that the exchange had enough liquidity to cover customer spot balances. He attached court filings which showed that there was about $5.5 billion in liquid assets. The former CEO then further explained that most of the funds sat inside an opt-in margin and lending pools used for trading, as highlighted as the 77% in the pie chart.
According to him, this structure, common on margin exchanges, meant that the platform was not inherently insolvent.
Sam Bankman-Fried says customers like his trading firm, Alameda Research, chose this setup. It used one big pot of collateral for loans and bets. “FTX could cover the rest,” he claimed, portraying FTX as a normal crypto platform and not a Ponzi scheme.
The Numbers Behind the Claim
Analyst Jim Pimbley’s has previously argued that some filings support SBF’s liquidity claims. Spot balances (which are straight customer deposits) were fully covered by cash and easy-to-sell assets. The margin pool held riskier stuff, but users agreed to it, like parking money in a high-interest account that banks might lend out.
FTX experienced a massive wave of withdrawals before halting customer payouts. Sam Bankman-Fried insists, “Key is the opt-in collateral structure prevented classic bank-run failure.”
Harsh Backlash from Critics
As soon as SBF posted this on X, community members started to react and called his statements delusional. One of the users snapped and said that the customers did not clearly agree to their money being used for risky trading or lending. Many users thought that their regular deposits were safe, like money sitting in a bank account.
Second one argued that Sam Bankman-Fried allowed funds to flow to his trading firm, Alameda Research, which critics say used their money for risky bets and other expenses.
Third one said that they think that the idea of opt-in margin pool is just an excuse. According to them, Alameda had special access to funds, which made the system unfair.
So basically, critics were not convinced and they still think that their money was misused, which is why the case was treated as fraud.
Could This Save FTX?
With appeals grinding through 2026 courts, SBF’s filings spotlight a “liquidity, not insolvency.” If at all this narrative is proven, it flips the script that FTX was not broke, but was mismanaged. Pimbley’s math strengthens the case for a reboot. Creditors might get full payouts from recovered assets (now over $16 billion). But hurdles loom. Judges dismissed similar defenses that were raised before. Prosecutors paint SBF as a thief who cooked books.
Also Read: FTX’s SBF Slams Media & Biden DOJ, Claims System Is Biased
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