Sam Bankman-Fried scored meeting with top regulator, tried to win influence before FTX's collapse: Emails

Disgraced ex-cryptocurrency kingpin Sam Bankman Fried and his since-bankrupt company FTX scored a meeting with a top regulator and sought to sway them to adopt industry-friendly rules months before the exchange's historic collapse, emails show.

In May 2022, FTX pitched the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on why it was apparently poised to be a "superior" cryptocurrency exchange and was swiftly granted a meeting with its chairman, Martin Gruenberg, according to emails obtained by the watchdog Protect the Public's Trust and shared with the Washington Examiner.

“It seems that Sam Bankman-Fried and his colleagues at his failed firm FTX were looking to influence crypto regulations to their advantage," Michael Chamberlain, director of the watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner. "Perhaps we should consider ourselves fortunate because, were it not for FTX’s precipitous collapse, the executives now facing federal indictments may have been the primary drivers of government oversight of themselves and their competitors."

FTX was on a lobbying spree to gain influence in Washington before its November 2022 collapse, which was due to it allegedly diverting customer funds to Alameda Research, a defunct-company Bankman-Fried co-founded. Bankman-Fried plead not guilty in January to a slew of criminal charges, including wire fraud and money laundering.