The FTX disaster was something nobody saw coming, and now one investor – a young man named Evan Luthra – has described the debacle he’s endured after losing nearly $2 million in crypto funds following the collapse of one of the biggest and most powerful crypto trading platforms in the world.
Evan Luthra Has Lost a Lot of Money
UBS Americas CEO Robert Wolf recently labeled FTX as a “Ponzi scheme.” Millions of investors have seen their money completely vanish after it’s been shown that FTX used customer funds to purchase items like luxury condominiums in the Bahamas. Luthra himself lost quite a bit, and now he’s sharing his story to help others learn from what’s happened. In a recent discussion with FOX News, he said:
This is a big lesson for everybody in the crypto community. It’s a big, strong lesson [of] not your keys, not your crypto. If you don’t hold the keys to crypto, it’s not really your money.
Sam Bankman-Fried – the man behind the exchange – is believed to have pocketed as much as $300 million from investors. In his interview, Luthra slammed the former CEO, claiming that he’s nothing but a criminal and that everything that occurred with FTX did so because he and his fellow executives wanted it to happen. He said:
This was all intentionally done. This was a very calculated plan, or I should say a crime that has taken place… You could have a car manufacturer who cut some corners and then defrauded the industry. Doesn’t mean electric vehicles are bad. So, it’s like bitcoin by itself. The fundamentals are still very strong and if you have bitcoin in your hard wallet, in your hand, you have not lost any money today… From all this, I’ve already come to realize that Sam Bankman-Fried is a bad actor, here. We already know that this is a bad actor, this is a fraud, [and] this is a criminal.
Many are calling for a fund to be established to help the victims of the fallen company. Also, several democrat politicians accepted money from FTX, and they’re now being pressured to give it back.
This was a Criminal Act
Luthra doesn’t blame the politicians for taking the money as he’s convinced that they weren’t aware of the company’s dirty dealings or criminal behavior. He said:
You can’t blame the government for accepting donations without knowing that this was going to be criminal. You can’t really blame anybody in this case except Sam Bankman-Fried who is cruel, who intentionally planned and executed a fraud against the whole community, but the right thing would be for them to give the funds back. Whoever got the donations, and it should go back to the victims whose funds it really is. This was never his money to give away. This was our money.