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After nearly two years of silence, former FTX executive Ryan Salame seems to have just remembered his X account password. Or maybe, he\u2019s no longer worried about the consequences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Either way, Salame\u2019s got a classic case of the Twitter fingers and has been quite active on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His first post, while cryptic, seemed to imply that Salame is ready to talk about his time at the now infamous (and bankrupt) exchange.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And maybe he is. After all, he\u2019s set to report to prison in late August to serve<\/a> a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong> Former FTX exec Ryan Salame sentenced to 7.5 years, above government ask\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Earlier this week, Salame was the first of the FTX insiders (aside from Sam Bankman-Fried) to face sentencing, and Judge Lewis Kaplan \u2014 who also oversaw the trial<\/a> and sentencing of SBF \u2014 didn\u2019t go easy. Kaplan\u2019s sentencing exceeded the prosecutor\u2019s recommended five to seven years.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of all of the insiders to cut deals with prosecutors, Salame<\/a> has been very quiet. His former colleagues Caroline Ellison, Gary Wang and Nishad Singh were all present at Bankman-Fried\u2019s trial<\/a>. The trio gave insight into how Bankman-Fried operated FTX<\/a> and Alameda, and what the downfall looked like from the C-suite.\u00a0<\/p>\n Salame wasn\u2019t present back at the November trial, though prosecutors said<\/a> he handed over some information prior to its start. Not enough, however, they added, to make a sizable difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n But we don\u2019t really know what was shared back then, and we don\u2019t have Salame\u2019s perspective from the final days of FTX. Bits and pieces of Salame\u2019s side have trickled in through memos to the court from his team, prosecutors and witness letters like the one I mentioned in a previous Morning Riff from his good friend and former colleague, Sam Trabucco.\u00a0<\/p>\n Salame\u2019s final tweet \u2014 before it all went south \u2014 indicated that nothing was wrong. Though in all fairness, it wasn\u2019t as bad as SBF\u2019s infamous \u201cassets are fine\u201d tweet.<\/p>\n After his sentencing, Salame admitted that he\u2019s \u201ccringed reading it nearly every day\u201d since the November 2022 collapse<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even before Salame admitted that his tweet was \u201cterrible,\u201d Salame posted about a media interview in what seems to be him opening the door for his narrative.<\/p>\n Though he\u2019s teased a couple of details already, like his claim that he didn\u2019t know about the $55 million loan.\u00a0<\/p>\n There\u2019s still a lot we don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve heard bits and pieces from Singh about the political donations<\/a>, and Salame could, theoretically, offer some more insight into them. In legal filings ahead of the sentencing, his team also said that he was the \u201cfirst person\u201d to tell Bahamian authorities about FTX\u2019s fraud.<\/p>\n Overnight, Salame seemed to point to possibly authoring a book \u2014 though not on the subject of FTX \u2014 when he asked X, \u201cCan someone make a book of the best memes for the next few years and sell it on Amazon. Asking for a\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Now, whether Salame\u2019s looking to get a book deal about memes or testing the waters for a potential tell-all about the downfall is unclear.<\/p>\n Salame\u2019s publicly admitted that going to prison is \u201clike being alive for your own funeral\u201d and he seems to be bitter that he didn\u2019t sell off his crypto holdings instead of \u201clistening to multiple lawyers and borrowing from Alameda against it\u201d so we\u2019ll see how he approaches the next few months \u2014 and the seven years after that.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s only fair to point out that Salame\u2019s not the only crypto executive to take up writing either during or before a prison stint, as former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also teased<\/a> a potential book earlier this month.<\/p>\n Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n
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