Politicians Refuse to Say Whether They'll Give Back Donations From Sam Bankman-Fried

Millions of people are wondering what happened after the collapse of the FTX exchange.

The largest wipeout of wealth for a billionaire in history happened when its CEO was forced to resign.

The Justice Department and SEC are investigating Bankman-Fried after he was implicated in using customer funds to cover losses at FTX.

FTX's collapse was always going to be messy, but the fact that Bankman-Fried and his right-hand-man Ryan Salame donated tens of millions of dollars to politicians ahead of the 2022 election cycle is eyebrow raising. Things are complicated further by that. Most of the politicians that received donations from the FTX leadership pair have been eerily quiet on whether they will give the money back.

Most of the 26 FTX-funded campaigns contacted by The Daily Beast declined to respond.

Carolyn Bourdeaux had the foresight not to accept the money.

She told The Daily Beast that these guys were likely to come to a bad end. Lucy McBath benefited from ads from one of Bankman- Fried's political action committees.

There needs to be some serious oversight and for them to lean in on making sure we regulate this industry appropriately.

That's correct to say. The US government doesn't pay much attention to Cryptocurrencies. There's more pressure on lawmakers to come up with new laws for the rampant industry with the recent downturns.

It becomes a conflict of interest when these same lawmakers receive donations from the industry they are about to break.

Money in politics is not a problem exclusive to thecryptocurrencies. It has never been more exigent to scrutinize political donations because of the industry's newness and lack of regulation.

Some lawmakers don't see the problem with taking FTX money. Both Republican and Democrat candidates received a part of the FTX pie.

According to the Beast, Waters said that the collapse of FTX put a bad eye on cryptocurrencies. We will see what happens.

We'll probably just have to wait and see, and watch the flames rise from the next doomed exchange, but in a way she's right, that doesn't inspire faith that Waters and colleagues will bring the heat.

The campaigns were aided by the use of sedy coin cash. Is it possible that they'll keep it?

There is more on the FTX collapse.