Founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX has written to its former employees apologising for his role in its crash.

Sam Bankman-Fried insists the company was essentially healthy.

In the letter, he wrote: “I deeply regret my oversight failure. In retrospect, I wish that we had done many many things differently … I’m going to do what I can to make it up to you guys – and to the customers – even if that takes the rest of my life.”

He added: “We likely could have raised significant funding. Potential interest in billions of dollars of funding came in roughly eight minutes after I signed the chapter 11 docs.

“Between those funds, the billions of dollars of collateral the company still held, and the interest we’d received from other parties, I think that we probably could have returned large value to customers and saved the business.

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“An extreme amount of coordinated pressure came, out of desperation, to file for bankruptcy for all of FTX – even entities that were solvent – and despite other jurisdictions’ claims … I reluctantly gave in to that pressure, even though I should have known better; I wish I had listened to those of you who saw and still see value in the platform, which was and is my belief as well.”

He claims FTX was a fundamentally healthy business, presenting a narrative of its downfall that showed it with assets of $60bn, against only $2bn of liabilities, as recently as this spring.

But two crypto market crashes led to its assets dropping in value causing customers to fall away with $8bn of withdrawals in a few days.