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FTX’s Bahamian company spent a staggering amount of money on luxury hotels and accommodation, flights and food in the nine months before the exchange’s collapse, court filings have revealed.
According to bankruptcy court documents reviewed by Business Insider, FTX Digital Markets went through $40 million between last January and September, before filing for bankruptcy in November because of “liquidity issues.”
More than $15 million went on luxury hotels and accommodation, with $5.8 million of that at one resort — the Albany Hotel. This is the luxury resort is where Sam Bankman-Fried lived in his $30 million penthouse until his arrest, thereportadded.
Around $3.6 million went on the Grand Hyatt, a four-star hotel that hosted British royalty in March. There was also $800,000 spent at the five-star Rosewood resort.
Furthermore, almost $7 million was spent on meals and entertainment, with around half of that on catering services, according to the documents. Nearly $4 million was spent on flights and over $500,000 was spent on postage and delivery.
FTX even made a private deal with an air carrier to fly their Amazon orders from a Miami depot since the e-commerce giant didn’t deliver to the Bahamas, according to London’sFinancial Times.
The FT added that the firm also provided Bahamas staff with a “full suite of cars and gas covered for all employees [and] unlimited, full expense covered trips to any office globally.”
In December, a former employee revealed theextent of the company’s excessive luxury expenditures, saying it was “cult-like.” “The entire operation was iconically and moronically inefficient,” she said at the time.
FTX also made numerous donations to local charities and organizations in the Bahamas.
There has been speculation that some of these donations may have to be returned as the Caribbean island nation tries to move on, according to a Jan. 8reportin local media.
Bankman-Friedentered a plea of not guiltyto eight criminal charges in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 3.
Logan Paul has deleted his response video aimed at Coffeezilla and apologized in a surprising U-turn.
YouTuber Logan Paul has deleted a video in which he threatened to sueinternet detective Stephen “Coffeezilla” Findeisen over a three-part series that painted Paul’s CryptoZoo project as a “scam.”
According to Coffezilla in a Jan. 6 tweet, Paul has promised to drop his threats of filing a defamation lawsuit over the videos.
Logan called me. He said he’s deleting the two responses, and is dropping the lawsuit threats.
— Coffeezilla (@coffeebreak_YT)January 7, 2023
I believe he’s making a 3rd response, which I’ll be delaying my video to include. Hopefully this time he takes accountability and refunds the victims of CryptoZoo. That’s what matters.https://t.co/ElKX2d9mY0
Sharing a screenshot from the CryptoZoo Discord server, Findeisen also showed a message from Paul confirming he had deleted his initial response to Coffeezilla’s video series and apologized. It read:
“It was rash and misaligned with the trust issue at hand, so I called him today and apologized.”
“The war is not with Coffee. In fact, I’m grateful he brought this to light. I will be taking accountability, apologizing, and coming forward with a plan in the near future,” Paul added.
At the time of writing, Paul’s Jan. 3 response video to Coffeezilla’s accusations has been removed from YouTube. Thetweetpointing to the video is still up, as is his initial Dec. 23postcalling the allegations “Not true.”
The two YouTubersbegan a war of wordsafter Coffeezilla launched the first of a three-part video serieson Dec. 17 accusing CryptoZoo of numerous business malpractices while also calling out Paul, the face of the project.
In his now-deletedresponsevideo to Coffeezilla, Paul accused Coffeezilla of defamation, adding “I’ll see you in court.”
Coffeezilla mentioned in his post that Paul is possibly “making a 3rd response," but at the time of writing neither Paul nor Coffeezilla has shed any further light on the matter.
Cointelegraph reached out to both Paul and Coffeezilla for comment but did not receive a response before publication.