Emin Gün Sirer, head of Ava Labs—the company behind the Avalanche blockchain—said in a Decrypt podcast that the FTX collapse harmed the reputation of the entire digital asset industry.
“The damage caused by Sam Bankman-Fried is immeasurable. All the goodwill we have accumulated over many, many years of hard work has simply been usurped by some guy who comes in and builds himself up as a genius,” he explained.
According to Gün Sirer, he has seen the industry grow from nothing into what it is today. The thought of the damage caused by Bankman-Fried keeps him up at night. Yet the Ava Labs chief has managed to identify some positive takeaways from the episode.
“If we had given Sam another couple of years on the runway, this [FTX collapse] would have been much worse,” Gün Sirer explained.
Earlier, Bankman-Fried arrested on December 12, 2022 in the Bahamas at the request of the U.S. government. The court released him on $250 million bail.
In February 2023, the founder of FTX was charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud. The number of charges against him rose from eight to twelve.