Patrick Hilmann, the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of leading crypto exchange Binance, alleged that Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder and former CEO of the now-defunct rival exchange FTX, consistently criticized Binance’s CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) before FTX’s collapse, a behavior Hilmann referred to as “shading.”

In a recent tweet, the CSO disclosed that SBF was fond of spreading fake rumors about CZ and often called him an “evil Chinese.”

SBF Constantly Shaded CZ

A great read by @WilliamCohan at @PuckNews. One thing they missed, Sam was CONSTANTLY spreading fake rumors about @cz_binance, because shading him as an “evil Chinese” was critical to his scam. You can’t pretend to be Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader.https://t.co/oi9JxsqPyz

— Patrick Hillmann (@PRHillmann) April 20, 2023

Hilmann’s tweet highlighted a report by veteran business writer William Cohan where Anthony Scaramucci, popularly known as “The Mooch,” an American financier and the founder of SkyBridge Capital, discussed the state of his relationship with SBF before FTX met its demise.

Among other things, Scaramucci mentioned that he had been on a $1 billion fundraising trip with SBF to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the weeks leading up to the FTX saga.

As CryptoPotato reported in September, FTX had been in talks with severa