Former FTX Executive Harrison Is Getting Ready for His Next Act
- Brett Harrison, ex-president of FTX US, starts new crypto firm
- Startup follows FTX’s market-rattling November implosion
Brett Harrison, former president of FTX Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange, during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/BloombergIt’s been less than three months since FTX collapsed in what US prosecutors called one of the biggest financial frauds in American history — and a former top executive is eager to get it all behind him and move on to his next big thing.
Yes, Brett Harrison acknowledges, he led FTX US, the crypto exchange’s American arm, and was one of its public faces before stepping down in September. But no, Harrison insists, he didn’t have a clue that Sam Bankman-Fried and his inner circle allegedly gambled away customers’ funds in the market. In fact, Harrison says he’s a victim just like more than a million other creditors lined up in bankruptcy court, frustrated that he, too, may never get back any of the money he invested with the exchange. He told Bloomberg Television’s Sonali Basak on Thursday that he had purchased a few hundred thousand dollars worth of crypto in 2021 that he’s unable to access.