Sam Bankman-Fried: Crypto Winter Could Have Been ‘Worse’

FTX chief executive officer Sam Bankman-Fried said the crypto winter could have been much worse in terms of asset prices. The billionaire investor feels the industry needs sensible regulation and it would not matter who regulates. He also spoke about the series of investments his companies made in crypto companies. Bankman-Fried said some of the bailout investments were fruitful while some others did not match expectations.

Sam Bankman-Fried & Crypto Winter

While the price of Bitcoin fell below $20,000 yet again to start the week, the FTX CEO feels the situation is not too bad. In an interview to Bloomberg, Bankman-Fried said things could have been worse with respect to Bitcoin price. The investor said he is not worried about the industry imploding anytime soon. He described the results of $1 billion in crypto bailout investments as ‘mixed’.

The CEO reiterated that the funding was offered with an intention to support crypto companies and not to maximize on deals.

“I think some were going to turn out to be profitable, some won’t be. We had to make snap judgment calls. The backstopping was fueled in part by FTX’s profitability and fundraising, and had the ultimate goal of supporting companies in the industry.”

Lobbying For Crypto Adoption

The billionaire investor said he is active in lobbying the Congress in Washington to garner support for the crypto ecosystem. When asked about lack of clarity on which regulating body could oversee crypto operations, he said it would not matter much. He added that he would be fine with either of the Securities and Exchange Commission or the Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulating the industry.

“What we’ve tried really hard to do over the last year is get the industry to a place where it is happy to accept sensible regulation. I believe tensions have cooled somewhat between regulators and the digital currency companies.”

Meanwhile, Bitcoin had in the last few hours recovered from the below $20,000 range. As of writing, BTC is trading at $20,323.90, up 0.13% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.