Skybridge Capital CEO Anthony Scaramucci says he expects other crypto exchange leaders will step up to fill the void left by the collapse of FTX.
In a new interview at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore, Scaramucci says that while FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was once driving the conversation on potential crypto regulation, other leaders will now take over the discussion.
He names Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Binance chief Changpeng Zhao (CZ) as likely candidates.
“I’m hoping people like a Brian Armstrong, a CZ internationally, Brian in the United States or people like Brian will step into the vacuum and try to lead in that space and see if they can implore the regulators in the United States to provide more guidance. I think the crypto industry has learned why we have banking regulation. Because you had the Wild West in the 1920s.
You had another incident with the S&L (savings and loan) Crisis in the late 80s into the early 90s. And so, yes, you need regulation. Unfortunately, we have primordial instincts, and we got a lot of greedy people. And you can set things up without the right guardrails and cause a lot of damage which is happening right now.”
Earlier this year, FTX bought a 30% stake of Scaramucci’s hedge fund, Skybridge Capital. The veteran investor says he was taken aback by a dramatic misrepresentation of FTX’s balance sheet which was very hard to detect.
“I talked to a lot of my friends that were involved in the due diligence process. I think it’s very hard to protect yourself against that sort of misrepresentation. Let’s call it misrepresentation for right now. You know, if you’re being shown a balance sheet that may or may not be accurate, if you’re being shown income statements that may or may not be accurate, that are being validated by third parties.
You know, that’s pretty rough. That’s very hard to see through. If you’re running a background check on somebody like Sam you’re not going to find anything. He was unblemished, if you will, prior to this incident. So I think it’s an issue of certain things are going to fall through the cracks, whether you like it or not.”