Changpeng Zhao and Sam Bankman-Fried are squabbling on Twitter, with the Binance boss calling the former FTX chief a "fraudster" and "unhinged".
In a tweet thread responding to comments made by Kevin O'Leary, the Shark Tank judge who was paid $15 million to act as a spokesman for FTX, Zhao made several claims about the relationship between Binance and FTX, revisiting events from long before the latter's recent collapse.
Last month, FTX agreed to sell itself to rival Binance but that quickly fell through when due diligence showed up a massive financial black hole. Soon after, FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried quit as CEO.
In his tweets, Zhao says that, unlike O'Leary, Binance did due diligence on FTX and decided to exit its investment in its rival a year and a half ago after becoming uncomfortable with the crypto exchange's ties to Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research.
At the time, claims Zhao: "Sam was so unhinged when we decided to pull out as an investor that he launched a series of offensive tirades at multiple Binance team members, including threatening to go to “extraordinary lengths to make us pay” - we still have those text messages."
Bankman-Fried has replied with his own claims about the event: "You won, @cz_binance. There's no need to lie, now, about the buyout. We initiated conversations around buying you out, and we decided to do it because it was important for our business. And while I was frustrated with your 'negotiation' tactics, I chose to still do it."
Elsewhere in his tweet thread, Zhao takes aim at FTX's huge spending, claiming: "You don't have to be a genius to know something don't smell right at FTX. They were 1/10th our size, yet outspent us 100/1 on marketing & "partnerships", fancy parties in the Bahamas, trips across the globe, and mansions for all of their senior staff (and his parents)."
He also says that his ethnicity has been a focus of attacks on him, noting that he is Canadian and that Binance is not a Chinese company.
Bankman-Fried, meanwhile, has also used Twitter to confirm that he will testify before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday at a hearing about the FTX's collapse.
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